We're Not Gonna Break It! Consistency-Preserving Operators for Efficient Product Line Configuration
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2023

When configuring a software product line, finding a good trade-off between multiple orthogonal quality concerns is a challenging multi-objective optimisation problem. State-of-the-art solutions based on search-based techniques create invalid configurations in intermediate steps, requiring additional repair actions that reduce the efficiency of the search. In this work, we introduce consistency-preserving configuration operators (CPCOs) - genetic operators that maintain valid configurations throughout the entire search. CPCOs bundle coherent sets of changes: the activation or deactivation of a particular feature together with other (de)activations that are needed to preserve validity. In our evaluation, our instantiation of the IBEA algorithm with CPCOs outperforms two state-of-the-art tools for optimal product line configuration in terms of both speed and solution quality. The improvements are especially pronounced in large product lines with thousands of features.

feature model configuration

Software product lines

search-based software engineering

Författare

Jose Miguel Horcas

Universidad De Malaga

Daniel Strüber

Göteborgs universitet

Radboud Universiteit

Alexandru Burdusel

King's College London

Jabier Martinez

Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA)

Steffen Zschaler

King's College London

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering

0098-5589 (ISSN) 19393520 (eISSN)

Vol. 49 3 1102-1117

Ämneskategorier

Programvaruteknik

Robotteknik och automation

Datavetenskap (datalogi)

DOI

10.1109/TSE.2022.3171404

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2023-07-18