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From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-06-06 14:49:00


At 05:07 PM 5/30/2001, Vesa Karvonen wrote:

>I like the idea of expressing feature models using a language that is
more
>suitable for textual representation. Unfortunately I find it difficult to
>express some feature models using the grammar described on the Boost site
>http://www.boost.org/more/feature_model_diagrams.htm).
>
>What is the recommended way to represent a node with both mandatory and
>optional features? For example:
>
> concept
> |
> +---* mandatory_feature_a
> |
> +---* mandatory_feature_b
> |
> +---o optional_feature_a
> |
> +---o optional_feature_b
>
>Assuming that I understand the grammar correctly, the closest that I can
>come to is:
>
> concept
> ( mandatory_feature_a
> , mandatory_feature_b
> , optional_features
> )
>
>
> optional_features
> [ optional_feature_a
> + optional_feature_b
> ]
>
>As you can see, I had to introduce a dummy "optional_features" node. The
>above two feature models are no longer technically the same.
>
>Have I misunderstood the grammar or is this a weakness of the grammar?

Perhaps you misunderstood the grammar. In particular, note that "element"
is allowed to be "details" which in turn may be an optional "feature-list".

The example you give should thus already be valid:

     concept
         ( mandatory_feature_a
         , mandatory_feature_b
         , [optional_feature_a]
         , [optional_feature_b]
         )

Perhaps it is confusing that the following are equivalent:

     concept [ feature_a, feature_b ]
     concept ( [feature_a], [feature_b] )
     concept ( [feature_a, feature_b] )
     concept ( [feature_a] + [feature_b] )
     concept ( [feature_a + feature_b] )

The first form would be eliminated if the second line of the grammar was
changed to:

     feature ::= feature-name [ "(" feature-list ")" ]

But I'm not sure it really matters. In theory it would be nice if there
was a single canonical form. Any ideas?

Thanks for the interest. Feature models are really useful, and having a
language that allows them to be expressed as text still seems worthwhile to
me.

--Beman


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