Combining Product Line Approach and Formal Specification for Product Family Modeling

The lack of systematic approach for product family modeling leads to difficulties in developing a series of high-quality software products simultaneously. This paper tackles this challenge by combining product line approach and formal specification technique. After constructing the feature model of the target family, our approach will start the formalization of the bottom-level features. For each feature, a formal model will be built according to its inner structure and function details. Any problem occurred during this process will cause the evolvement of the feature model under the guidance of a set of pre-defined evolution rules. The final product family model will be established when no problem can be found in both feature model and feature specification. This interleaving of feature model evolvement and feature formalization facilitates consistent and complete product family modeling from both abstract and concrete levels. A case study is given to illustrate the validity of the approach.