Recovering traceability links between feature models and source code of product variants

Abstract

Usually software product variants, developed by clone-and-own approach, form often a starting point for building Software Product Line (SPL). To migrate software products that deemed similar into a product line, it is essential to trace variability among software artifacts because the distinguishing factor between traditional software engineering and software product line engineering is the variability. Variability tracing is used to support conversion from traditional software development into software product line development and automate products derivation process such that core assets can be automatically configured for a product according to the features selection from the feature model. Tracing and maintaining interrelationships between artifacts within a software system also are needed to facilitate program comprehension, make the process of maintaining the system less dependent on individual experts. This paper presents a method based on information retrieval approach namely, latent semantic indexing, to establish traceability links between object-oriented source code of product variants and their feature model as representative of variability model.