Mapping features to aspects: a model-based generative approach

Abstract

Handling the various derivations of an aspect-oriented software famility architecture can be a daunting and costly task if explicit support is not systematically provided throughout early and late development artifacts. Aspectoriented software development (AOSD) has been recently explored by several research works as a technique that enables software product line customization. However, the application of AOSD has been limited to modularize specific crosscutting features encountered in the implementation of software product-line architectures or frameworks. Only a few works have investigated the development of product derivation approaches for AOSD. This paper presents a model-based generative approach to mapping features to aspects across different artifacts of an product line. Our main aim is to enable the smooth and systematic derivation of aspect-oriented software family architecture. Our approach is complementary to a set of previously-proposed modularization guidelines to implement aspect-oriented frameworks. We present details about the suite of mappings supported by our generative model, illustrate them in heterogeneous case studies, and discuss several implementation issues for its accomplishment.