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Automatic refactoring of delta-oriented SPLs to remove-free form and replace-free form

  • Foundations for Mastering Change
  • Quantitative Variability Modelling and Analysis
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Abstract

Delta-oriented programming (DOP) is a flexible transformational approach to implement software product lines (SPLs). In delta-oriented SPLs, variants are generated by applying operations contained in delta modules to a base program. These operations can add, remove or modify named elements in a program (e.g. classes, methods and fields in a Java program). This paper presents two notions of normal form for delta-oriented SPLs. Both normal forms do not contain the remove operation. Additionally, the second normal form enforces a limitation on the use of the method-modify operation. For each of the proposed normal forms an algorithm for refactoring a delta-oriented SPL into one that satisfies that normal form is described. The algorithms are formalized for a core calculus for delta-oriented SPLs of Java programs.

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Notes

  1. We assume unambiguity of the considered delta-oriented SPLs, i.e. for each product, any total order of the activated deltas that respects the (possibly partial) order specified in \(<_{\texttt {L}}\) generates the same variant—see [6, 37] for effective means to ensure unambiguity.

  2. If the activation conditions of deltas are expressed by propositional formulas over features, then the mapping \(\alpha _{\texttt {L}}\) is represented as a mapping from delta names \({\texttt {d}}\) to propositional formulas \(\phi \) (cf. the explanation before Example 2) and the activation condition is set to \(\alpha _{{\texttt {L}}}({\texttt {d}}')\wedge \lnot \alpha _{{\texttt {L}}}({\texttt {d}})\).

  3. When the number of products is too large, testing all the products is unfeasible. This could be addressed by using, e.g. sample-based SPL testing techniques [29, 30, 35, 40], where a subset of products—covering relevant combinations of features—is generated and tested by applying single system testing techniques.

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We thank the anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions for improving the presentation.

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  1. University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Ferruccio Damiani & Luca Paolini

  2. ONERA, Palaiseau, France

    Michael Lienhardt

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This work has been partially supported by: EU Horizon 2020 Project HyVar (www.hyvar-project.eu, GA No. 644298) and ICT COST Action IC1402 ARVI (www.cost-arvi.eu)

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Damiani, F., Lienhardt, M. & Paolini, L. Automatic refactoring of delta-oriented SPLs to remove-free form and replace-free form. Int J Softw Tools Technol Transfer 21, 691–707 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-019-00534-2

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