A Model-Based Approach to Managing Feature Binding Time in Software Product Line Engineering

Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) is a software reuse paradigm for developing software products, from managed reusable assets, based on analysis of commonality and variability (C & V) of a product line. Many approaches of SPLE use a feature as a key abstraction to capture the C&V. Recently, there have been increasing demands for the provision of flexibility about not only the variability of features but also the variability of when features should be selected (i.e., variability on feature binding times). Current approaches to support variations of feature binding time mostly focused on ad hoc implementation mechanisms. In this paper, we first identify the challenges of feature binding time management and then propose an approach to analyze the variation of feature binding times and use the results to specify model-based architectural components for the product line. Based on the specification, components implementing variable features are parameterized with the binding times and the source codes for the components and the connection between them are generated.