An ontological knowledge-based method for handling feature model defects due to dead feature

The specifications of a certain domain are addressed by a portfolio of software products, known as Software Product Line (SPL). Feature Model (FM) supports domain engineering by modeling domain knowledge along with variability among SPL. The quality of FM is one of the significant factors for the successful SPL in order to attain high quality software products. However, the benefits of SPL can be reduced due to defects in FM. Dead Feature (DF) is one of such defects. Several approaches exist in the literature to detect defects due to DF in FMs. But only a few can handle their sources and solutions which are cumbersome and difficult to understand by humans. An ontological knowledge-based method for handling defects due to DF in FMs is described in this paper. It specifies FM in the form of ontology-based knowledge representation. The rules based on first-order logic are created and implemented using Prolog to detect defects due to DF with sources as well as suggest solutions to resolve these defects. A case study of the product line available on SPLOT repository is utilized for illustrating the proposed work. The experiments are performed with real-world FMs of varied sizes from SPLOT and FMs created with the FeatureIDE tool. The results prove the efficiency, scalability (up to model with 32,000 features) and accuracy of the presented method. Therefore, reusability of DFs free knowledge enables deriving defect free products from SPL and eventually enhances the quality of SPL.