Fragment‐Block: A Novel Approach for Managing Variability in Software Product Lines

Objective Changes in the functionality of a software product line (SPL) can generate various issues in the SPL source code. Their complexity depends primarily on the amount of changes in the SPL source code and the internal mechanisms for managing variability. Further, modern development frameworks rely on a variety of artefacts besides source code. SPL developers need tools that can consistently search, segment, and analyse the SPL source code, to minimise undesired behaviours and reduce the time to implement new functionalities. Methods We introduce a novel approach and tool to manage SPLs source code. This approach streamlines the search and segmentation processes during source‐code changes. To demonstrate its feasibility, we apply it as a proof of concept to two concrete SPLs: an implementation of the Elevator SPL from FeatureIDE; and a new SPL that includes generic textual artefacts. Further, we position our tool with respect to other existing approaches. Result The results demonstrated the feasibility of our approach. Differently from other tools for variability management, our approach supports both variability in time and variability in space, and supports generic textual artefacts, offering a similar flexibility as conditional compilation. Conclusion We proposed a new approach and tool for managing variability in SPLs. Our proposal leverages the concepts of blocks, features, and fragments to organise variability in textual artefacts, including, but not limited to, source code, A key characteristic of the approach is that it does not rely on any specific IDE, making it broadly applicable across different development contexts.