UML Transformation to Java-based Software Product Lines

Abstract

Software product line engineering (SPLE) is an emerging approach that enables variability management in software development. SPLE offers tremendous benefits, but lack of tool support becomes a barrier in the adoption of SPLE. Variability modules for Java (VMJ) is an implementation approach that is defined based on the variability modules (VM) concept to support SPLE. VMJ combines Java modules system and design patterns that are commonly used by software developers. VMJ is accompanied by a UML profile, called UML-VM profile, which extends UML notation to model variability in the UML diagram. UML-VM diagram is used to model the problem domain, and VMJ is used in the domain implementation. In this research, we design a model transformation from Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagram into VMJ. The transformation rules are defined based on the UML-VM profile and implemented in the Eclipse Acceleo model to text transformation. As a result, a UML diagram can be transformed automatically into Java-based software product lines. The transformation tool is evaluated using a case study by comparing the generated code and the actual implementation.