Introducing fault tree analysis into product line software engineering for exception handling feature exploitation

In product line software development, developers recognize functional and non-functional features of the product members of a product line, analyze commonality and variability of the product members in terms of their equipping features, and construct or acquire core assets with consideration of reusability. The method proposed in this paper is for reusability of exception handling that are considerable parts of products. The proposing method exploits exception handling features with using fault tree analysis (or FTA), reflects the exploited features in the feature diagram, and enables management of core assets with keeping traceability from feature diagram. The proposing method reduces omission of exception handling, moreover, manages the constructed fault tree as a core asset and enables derivation of fault trees of product members of the product line to use them for improving safety and reliability.