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Feature-Oriented Nonfunctional Requirement Analysis for Software Product Line

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Abstract

Domain analysis in software product line (SPL) development provides a basis for core assets design and implementation by a systematic and comprehensive commonality/variability analysis. In feature-oriented SPL methods, products of the domain analysis are domain feature models and corresponding feature decision models to facilitate application-oriented customization. As in requirement analysis for a single system, the domain analysis in the SPL development should consider both functional and nonfunctional domain requirements. However, the nonfunctional requirements (NFRs) are often neglected in the existing domain analysis methods. In this paper, we propose a context-based method of the NFR analysis for the SPL development. In the method, NFRs are materialized by connecting nonfunctional goals with real-world context, thus NFR elicitation and variability analysis can be performed by context analysis for the whole domain with the assistance of NFR templates and NFR graphs. After the variability analysis, our method integrates both functional and nonfunctional perspectives by incorporating the nonfunctional goals and operationalizations into an initial functional feature model. NFR-related constraints are also elicited and integrated. Finally, a decision model with both functional and nonfunctional perspectives is constructed to facilitate application-oriented feature model customization. A computer-aided grading system (CAGS) product line is employed to demonstrate the method throughout the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Xin Peng (Member, CCF) & Wen-Yun Zhao (Senior Member, CCF)

  2. Knowledge-Intensive Software Engineering Research Group, Department of Software and Information Systems College of Computing and Informatics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, 28223, U.S.A.

    Seok-Won Lee

Authors
  1. Xin Peng
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  2. Seok-Won Lee
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  3. Wen-Yun Zhao
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xin Peng.

Additional information

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 60703092 and 90818009, the National High Technology Research and Development 863 Program of China under Grant No. 2007AA01Z125.

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Peng, X., Lee, SW. & Zhao, WY. Feature-Oriented Nonfunctional Requirement Analysis for Software Product Line. J. Comput. Sci. Technol. 24, 319–338 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-009-9227-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-009-9227-2

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