Abstract
A software product-line is a set of products built from a core set of software components. Although software engineers develop software product-lines for various application types, they are most commonly used for embedded systems development, where the variability of hardware features requires variability in the supporting firmware. Feature models are used to represent the variability in these software product-lines. Various feature modeling approaches have been proposed, including feature diagrams, domain specific languages, constraint languages, and the semantic web language OWL. This paper explores a conceptual graph approach to feature modeling in an effort to produce feature models that have a more natural, and more easily expressed mapping to the problem domain. It demonstrates the approach using a standard Graph Product-line problem that has been discussed in various software product-line papers. A conceptual graph feature model is developed for the graph product-line and it is compared to other feature models for this product-line.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Batory, D.: Feature models, grammars, and propositional formulas. In: Proceedings of the Software Product Line Conference (2005)
Beuche, D.: Composition and Construction of Embedded Software Families, Ph.D. thesis, Otto-von-Guericke-Universittät, Magdeburg, Germany (2003)
Bühne, S., Lauenroth, K., Pohl, K.: Why is it not Sufficient to Model Requirements Variability with Feature Models? In: AURE 2004. Proceedings Workshop on Automotive Requirements Engineering, Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan (2004)
Brooks Jr., F.P.: No Silver Bullet – Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering. IEEE Computer 20(4), 10–19 (1987)
Czarnecki, K.: Overview of Generative Software Development. In: Banâtre, J.-P., Fradet, P., Giavitto, J.-L., Michel, O. (eds.) UPP 2004. LNCS, vol. 3566, pp. 313–328. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Czarnecki, K., Helsen, S., Eisenecker, U.: Staged Configuration Through Specialization and Multi-Level Configuration of Feature Models. Software Process Improvement and Practice 10(2) (2005)
Czarnecki, K., Kim, C.H.P.: Cardinality-based feature modeling and constraints: a progress report. In: International Workshop on Software Factories, San Diego, California (October 2005)
Czarnecki, K., Kim, C.H.P., Kalleberg, K.: Feature Models Are Views on Ontologies. In: SPLC 2006. Proceedings of 10th International Software Product Line Conference, pp. 41–51. IEEE, Los Alamitos (2006)
Czarnecki, K., Eisenecker, U.W.: Generative Programming: Methods Tools and Applications. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass (2000)
Greenfield, J., Short, K.: Software Factories: Assembling Applications with Patterns, Models, Frameworks, and Tools. Wiley, Indianapolis, IN (2004)
de Jonge, M., Visser, J.: Grammars as feature diagrams. In: ICSR7 Workshop on Generative Programming, pp. 23–24 (2002)
Kang, K., Cohen, S., Hess, J., Nowak, W., Peterson, S.: Feature-Oriented Domain Analysis (FODA) Feasibility Study, Technical Report, CMU/SEI-90TR-21 (November 1990)
Levenson, N.G.: Systemic Factors in Software-Related Spacecraft Accidents, AIAA Space 2001 Conference and Exhibition, New Mexico (August 2001)
Peng, X., Zhao, W., Xue, Y., Wu, Y.: Ontology-Based Feature Modeling and Application-Oriented Tailoring. In: Morisio, M. (ed.) ICSR 2006. LNCS, vol. 4039, pp. 87–100. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Sowa, J.F.: Conceptual Structures: Information Processing in Mind and Machine. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass (1984)
Wang, H., Li, Y., Sun, J., Zhang, H., Pan, J.: A semantic web approach to feature modeling and verification. In: SWESE 2005. Workshop on Semantic Web Enabled Software Engineering (November 2005)
Zave, P.: FAQ Sheet on Feature Interactions, www.research.att.com/~pamela/faq.html
Lopez-Herrejon, R.E., Batory, D.: A Standard Problem for Evaluating Product-Line Methodologies. In: Bosch, J. (ed.) GCSE 2001. LNCS, vol. 2186, pp. 9–13. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bachmeyer, R.C., Delugach, H.S. (2007). A Conceptual Graph Approach to Feature Modeling. In: Priss, U., Polovina, S., Hill, R. (eds) Conceptual Structures: Knowledge Architectures for Smart Applications. ICCS 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4604. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73681-3_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73681-3_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-73680-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-73681-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)