Test-based SPL extraction: an exploratory study

Many software systems have been developed as single products before Software Product Lines (SPLs) have emerged. Although some promising approaches have been proposed, extracting an SPL from existing software products is still expensive and time consuming. This paper presents an exploratory study that relies on a test-based SPL extraction from systems already developed. We aim to evaluate testing as the main mean to locate feature code and different sorts of existing artifacts to support the test-based location. We conduct two case studies starting from the derivation of the SPL feature model to the feature code location. Our preliminary results indicate (i) good rates of precision for feature seed location, where seed means a small portion of the feature code that allows the identification of the remaining portion, and (ii) good rates of recall for locating the whole feature code.