International audienceProduct Lines (PL) have proved an effective approach to reuse-based systems development. Several modeling languages were proposed so far to specify PL. Although they can be very different, these languages show two common features: they emphasize (a) variability, and (b) the specification of constraints to define acceptable configurations. It is now widely acknowledged that configuring a product can be considered as a constraint satisfaction problem. It is thus natural to consider constraint programming as a first choice candidate to specify constraints on PL. For instance, the different constraints that can be specified using the FODA language can easily be expressed using boolean constraints, which enables automated calculation and configuration using a SAT solver. But constraint programming proposes other domains than the boolean domain: for instance integers, real, or sets. The integer domain was, for instance, proposed by Benavides to specify constraints on feature attributes. This paper proposes to further explore the use of integer constraint programming to specify PL constraints. The approach was implemented in a prototype tool. Its use in a real case showed that constraint programming encompasses different PL modeling languages (such as FORE, OVM, or else), and allows specifying complex constraints that are difficult to specify with these languages

Abstract-Product line engineering is a reuse-driven development paradigm based on the management of variability, which was successfully applied in information systems engineering and other domains. A common way to represent variability is with variability models that describe artefacts, and the dependencies between their various inflexions. Constraint programming, and in particular Boolean constraint programming, has been used so far to support analysis of variability models such as Feature-Oriented Domain Analysis (FODA) and the like. This paper goes a step further by using constraint programming to specify product lines. The focus on variability, variation points or dependencies is switched to the concept of constraints that apply to variables. The paper shows that this approach is richer than the one based on dependencies. For instance, many constraints that were needed in the cases we explored cannot be specified with dependencies of existing product line modelling languages. The approach was implemented in a prototype tool, and its scalability explored with industry case studies. These experiments show that constraint programming encompasses existing product line modelling languages such as FODA or OVM (Orthogonal Variability Model) and opens way to new possibilities such as reasoning simultaneously with different models during domain or application engineering.

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Software product families have proven to be an effective approach to reuse in software development.For planning requirements reuse, several variability approaches are developed.This study is made in an industrial company producing blood analysis automatons. It aims at finding the most suitable notation to model requirements variability for the product line developed by the company.The paper provides a comparative survey on feature-based notations for requirements variability modeling. It introduces an evaluation framework based on criteria that are derived by studying the main engineers' expectations for such a notation. The evaluation is fulfilled by making out notations' metamodels. The use of these languages is systematically illustrated with the same example, adapted from the company context, in order to refine the notation selection approach. Finally, recommendations are done, and issues on making the approach systematic are discussed.