Automated Analysis of Orthogonal Variability Models using Constraint Programming

Software Product Line (SPL) Engineering is about producing a family of products that share commonalities and variabilities. The variability models are used for variability management in SPLs. Currently, the automated analysis of variability models has become an active research area. In this paper we focus on the automated analysis of Orthogonal Variability Model (OVM), which is a modelling language for representing variability. The automated analysis of OVMs deals with the computer-aided extraction of information from OVMs. The automated analysis of OVMs has been hardly explored and currently has no tooling support. Considering our know-how to analyse feature models, which are the most popular variability models in SPLs, we propose to automate the analysis of OVMs by means of constraint programming. In addition, we propose to extend OVMs with attributes, allowing to add extra-functional information to OVMs. With this proposal we contribute with a step forward toward a tooling support for analysing OVMs.