Access control in feature-oriented programming

  • Authors:

  • Sven Apel;Sergiy Kolesnikov;Jörg Liebig;Christian Kästner;Martin Kuhlemann;Thomas Leich

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Informatics and Mathematics, University of Passau, Germany;Department of Informatics and Mathematics, University of Passau, Germany;Department of Informatics and Mathematics, University of Passau, Germany;Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Marburg, Germany;School of Computer Science, University of Magdeburg, Germany;Metop Research Center, Magdeburg, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Science of Computer Programming
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

In feature-oriented programming (FOP) a programmer decomposes a program in terms of features. Ideally, features are implemented modularly so that they can be developed in isolation. Access control mechanisms in the form of access or visibility modifiers are an important ingredient to attain feature modularity as they allow programmers to hide and expose internal details of a module's implementation. But developers of contemporary feature-oriented languages have not considered access control mechanisms so far. The absence of a well-defined access control model for FOP breaks encapsulation of feature code and leads to unexpected program behaviors and inadvertent type errors. We raise awareness of this problem, propose three feature-oriented access modifiers, and present a corresponding access modifier model. We offer an implementation of the model on the basis of a fully-fledged feature-oriented compiler. Finally, by analyzing ten feature-oriented programs, we explore the potential of feature-oriented modifiers in FOP.