Author: Miloslav Šípka
This prototype tool named FMCaseMDI supports constraint validation with respect to feature binding time. Instead of having an explicit binding time option for features, FMCaseMDI supports a more flexible solution: a user defines what part of additional information represents the binding time information.
The structure of additional information is user-defined and may contain any number of items. An additional information item may be a numerical (integer or floating point), textual, or selectable. The latter type enables to define a sequence of named values out of which one has to be selected for each feature. This is appropriate not only for representing feature binding time, but also for representing feature types or categories as in FODA or FORM.
The tool supports a limited portion of predicate logic constraint representation consisting of and, or, xor, implies and not operators. For convenience, constraints are grouped into named sets. A set of constraints applies to one concept (i.e., its feature diagram) only. A feature does not have to be qualified if its name is unique in a feature diagram, but partial qualification is not supported. In the process of validation of concept instances with repsect to feature binding time, trivial constraints are evaluated first. These include feature diagram constraints, namely checking superfeature inclusion (if one or more of its subfeatures is included), checking group constraints, and checking constraints of individual features. Afterwards, additional constraints are checked. The tool is able to determine the value of some constraints with unbound features. This is restricted to constraints of the form
x op ywhere op may be conjunction, disjunction, or implication.
More information (in Slovak) is available in the correponding Master's thesis:
Miloslav Šípka. Support for Feature Modeling. Master's thesis. Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. December 2005. (In Slovak.)
Thesis
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