We're Not Gonna Break It! Consistency-Preserving Operators for Efficient Product Line Configuration

Description

When configuring a software product line, finding a good trade-off between multiple orthogonal quality concerns is a challenging multi-objective optimisation problem. State-of-the-art solutions based on search-based techniques create invalid configurations in intermediate steps, requiring additional repair actions that reduce the efficiency of the search. In this work, we introduce consistency-preserving configuration operators (CPCOs)—genetic operators that maintain valid configurations throughout the entire search. CPCOs bundle coherent sets of changes: the activation or deactivation of a particular feature together with other (de)activations that are needed to preserve validity. In our evaluation, our instantiation of the IBEA algorithm with CPCOs outperforms two state-of-the-art tools for optimal product line configuration in terms of both speed and solution quality. The improvements are especially pronounced in large product lines with thousands of features.

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Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades RTI2018- 099213-B-I00

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Junta de Andalucía P18-FR-1081

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European Union (UE). H2020-101017109

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Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades RTI2018-101204-B-C22 (OPHELIA)

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