Variability Management in Aspect-Oriented Architecture Description Languages: An Integrated Approach

In this paper we propose an integrated approach for managing variabilities in architectural specifications of software product lines. Our approach combines an aspect-oriented architectural description language for product lines, PL-AspectualACME, with a variability modeling language, VML4Arch. PL-AspectualACME, also proposed in this paper, is used to specify the overall architectural description consisting of the modular representation of architecture commonalities and variabilities. VML4Arch is used to automatically derive product-specific architecture descriptions by specifying features dependencies and the variabilities that must be included in the products. We illustrate the application of our approach by using a software product line from the mobile domain.