AUTOMATIC GENERATION OF CONFIGURATION FILES FOR PRODUCT FAMILIES

Abstract: Over the past years, many software industries have adapted the Software Product Line(SPL) as a paradigm that empowers software reuse by exploiting software similarities and managing variabil- ities to enable high-quality deliverables with a shorter time to market. Nevertheless, the lifecycle of SPL development often faces complex tasks. Creating a specific product from the product family is the main challenge. One way towards product realization is through configuration files. Still, manually creating configuration files for each product is an error-prone and time-consuming activ- ity. Therefore, this thesis proposes a variability modeling approach that shall enable an automatic generation of the configuration files for a single product. We conduct a thorough investigation on how to model variability to support automatic generation of the configuration files, introduce four essential decisions related to variability expression, features, constraints and configuration transformation, and present a number of alternative solutions to these decisions. Moreover, we identify evolution scenarios of SPL and evaluate the decisions concerning the scenarios. Finally, a validation of the approach in an industrial case study provided by Bombardier Transportation is presented.