Towards an I/O Conformance Testing Theory for Software Product Lines based on Modal Interface Automata

We present an adaptation of input/output conformance (ioco) testing principles to families of similar implementation variants as appearing in product line engineering. Our proposed product line testing theory relies on Modal Interface Automata (MIA) as behavioral specification formalism. MIA enrich I/O-labeled transition systems with may/must modalities to distinguish mandatory from optional behavior, thus providing a semantic notion of intrinsic behavioral variability. In particular, MIA constitute a restricted, yet fully expressive subclass of I/O-labeled modal transition systems, guaranteeing desirable refinement and compositionality properties. The resulting modal-ioco relation defined on MIA is preserved under MIA refinement, which serves as variant derivation mechanism in our product line testing theory. As a result, modal-ioco is proven correct in the sense that it coincides with traditional ioco to hold for every derivable implementation variant. Based on this result, a family-based product line conformance testing framework can be established.Comment: In Proceedings FMSPLE 2015, arXiv:1504.0301

Variability Abstractions: Trading Precision for Speed in Family-Based Analyses (Extended Version)

Family-based (lifted) data-flow analysis for Software Product Lines (SPLs) is capable of analyzing all valid products (variants) without generating any of them explicitly. It takes as input only the common code base, which encodes all variants of a SPL, and produces analysis results corresponding to all variants. However, the computational cost of the lifted analysis still depends inherently on the number of variants (which is exponential in the number of features, in the worst case). For a large number of features, the lifted analysis may be too costly or even infeasible. In this paper, we introduce variability abstractions defined as Galois connections and use abstract interpretation as a formal method for the calculational-based derivation of approximate (abstracted) lifted analyses of SPL programs, which are sound by construction. Moreover, given an abstraction we define a syntactic transformation that translates any SPL program into an abstracted version of it, such that the analysis of the abstracted SPL coincides with the corresponding abstracted analysis of the original SPL. We implement the transformation in a tool, reconfigurator that works on Object-Oriented Java program families, and evaluate the practicality of this approach on three Java SPL benchmarks.Comment: 50 pages, 10 figure

A systematic review of quality attributes and measures for software product lines

[EN] It is widely accepted that software measures provide an appropriate mechanism for understanding, monitoring, controlling, and predicting the quality of software development projects. In software product lines (SPL), quality is even more important than in a single software product since, owing to systematic reuse, a fault or an inadequate design decision could be propagated to several products in the family. Over the last few years, a great number of quality attributes and measures for assessing the quality of SPL have been reported in literature. However, no studies summarizing the current knowledge about them exist. This paper presents a systematic literature review with the objective of identifying and interpreting all the available studies from 1996 to 2010 that present quality attributes and/or measures for SPL. These attributes and measures have been classified using a set of criteria that includes the life cycle phase in which the measures are applied; the corresponding quality characteristics; their support for specific SPL characteristics (e. g., variability, compositionality); the procedure used to validate the measures, etc. We found 165 measures related to 97 different quality attributes. The results of the review indicated that 92% of the measures evaluate attributes that are related to maintainability. In addition, 67% of the measures are used during the design phase of Domain Engineering, and 56% are applied to evaluate the product line architecture. However, only 25% of them have been empirically validated. In conclusion, the results provide a global vision of the state of the research within this area in order to help researchers in detecting weaknesses, directing research efforts, and identifying new research lines. In particular, there is a need for new measures with which to evaluate both the quality of the artifacts produced during the entire SPL life cycle and other quality characteristics. There is also a need for more validation (both theoretical and empirical) of existing measures. In addition, our results may be useful as a reference guide for practitioners to assist them in the selection or the adaptation of existing measures for evaluating their software product lines. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.This research has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the MULTIPLE (Multimodeling Approach For Quality-Aware Software Product Lines) project with ref. TIN2009-13838.Montagud Gregori, S.; Abrahao Gonzales, SM.; Insfrán Pelozo, CE. (2012). A systematic review of quality attributes and measures for software product lines. Software Quality Journal. 20(3-4):425-486. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-011-9146-7S425486203-4Abdelmoez, W., Nassar, D. 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B., Barachisio Lisboa, L., de Almeida E. S., & de Lemos Meira, S. R. (2008). Evaluating domain design approaches using systematic review. In 2nd European conference on software architecture, Cyprus, pp. 50–65.Ejiogu, L. (1991). Software engineering with formal metrics. QED Publishing.Engström, E., & Runeson, P. (2011). Software product line testing—A systematic mapping study. Information & Software Technology, 53(1), 2–13.Etxeberria, L., Sagarui, G., & Belategi, L. (2008). Quality aware software product line engineering. Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society, 14(1), Campinas Mar.Ganesan, D., Knodel, J., Kolb, R., Haury, U., & Meier, G. (2007). Comparing costs and benefits of different test strategies for a software product line: A study from Testo AG. In 11th international software product line conference, Kyoto, Japan, pp. 74–83, September 2007.Gómez, O., Oktaba, H., Piattini, M., & García, F. (2006). 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Variability and Evolution in Systems of Systems

In this position paper (1) we discuss two particular aspects of Systems of Systems, i.e., variability and evolution. (2) We argue that concepts from Product Line Engineering and Software Evolution are relevant to Systems of Systems Engineering. (3) Conversely, concepts from Systems of Systems Engineering can be helpful in Product Line Engineering and Software Evolution. Hence, we argue that an exchange of concepts between the disciplines would be beneficial.Comment: In Proceedings AiSoS 2013, arXiv:1311.319

Using problem descriptions to represent variabilities for context-aware applications

This paper investigates the potential use of problem descriptions to represent and analyse variability in context-aware software products. By context-aware, we refer to recognition of changes in properties of external domains, which are recognised as affecting the behaviour of products. There are many reasons for changes in the operating environment, from fluctuating resources upon which the product relies, to different operating locations or the presence of objects. There is an increasing expectation for software intensivedevices to be context-aware which, in turn, adds further variability to problem description and analysis. However, we argue in this paper that the capture of contextual variability on current variability representations and analyses has yet to be explored. We illustrate the representation of this type of variability in a pilot study, and conclude with lessons learnt and an agenda for further work

Creating product line architectures

The creation and validation of product line software architectures are inherently more complex than those of software architectures for single systems. This paper compares a process for creating and evaluating a traditional, one-of-a- kind software architecture with one for a reference software architecture. The comparison is done in the context of PuLSE-DSSA, a customizable process that integrates both product line architecture creation and evaluation

Applying model-driven paradigm: CALIPSOneo experience

Model-Driven Engineering paradigm is being used by the research community in the last years, obtaining suitable results. However, there are few practical experiences in the enterprise field. This paper presents the use of this paradigm in an aeronautical PLM project named CALIPSOneo currently under development in Airbus. In this context, NDT methodology was adapted as methodology in order to be used by the development team. The paper presents this process and the results that we are getting from the project. Besides, some relevant learned lessons from the trenches are concluded.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2010-20057-C03-02Junta de Andalucía TIC-578

Spinal Test Suites for Software Product Lines

A major challenge in testing software product lines is efficiency. In particular, testing a product line should take less effort than testing each and every product individually. We address this issue in the context of input-output conformance testing, which is a formal theory of model-based testing. We extend the notion of conformance testing on input-output featured transition systems with the novel concept of spinal test suites. We show how this concept dispenses with retesting the common behavior among different, but similar, products of a software product line.Comment: In Proceedings MBT 2014, arXiv:1403.704