Varion: Variability Manager

Varion is a tool which enables developers to manage variabilities in their Angular project using pre-processor notation.

Description:

In this project, we're implementing an approach based on the feature modeling technique to represent variability in ‍‍Angular applications and derive the final product based on the desired feature configuration model. We use @presence annotation to indicate the variation point in TypeScript files and <presence> ... </presence> tag to represent variation points in HTML files of an Angular project.

Example:

Imagine the JSON file below describes the user desired configuration model:

{
    "navbar": {
        "included": true,
        "MyTownIncluded": false
    },
    
    "student": {
        "included": true,
        
        "education": {
            "gpa": false, 
            "major": true, 
        },
        
        "foo" : {
            "included": true,
            "hiccup": true
        },
        
        "language": {
            "persian": true,
            "english": false,
            "french": false
        }    
    }
}

Here we have a TypeScript file which represents a Student class and it has been annotated with the @presence tag at different points to indicate the variation points.

class Student {
    private name: string;
    private studentNumber: number;
    private major: string;
    private gpa: number;


    public constructor(name: string, studentNumber: number, major: string, gpa: number) {
        this.name = name;
        this.studentNumber = studentNumber;
        this.major = major;
        this.gpa = gpa;
    }

    public toString() {
        console.log('Info:\n\t student_number: ' + this.studentNumber + '\n\t name: ' + this.name);

        // @presence {student.education.gpa and student.education.major}
        {
            console.log('\t major: ' + this.major + ', GPA: ' + this.gpa);
        }

        // @presence {student.education.gpa and not (student.education.major)}
        {
            console.log('\t GPA: ' + this.gpa);
        }

        // @presence {student.education.major and not (student.education.gpa)}
        {
            console.log('\t major: ' + this.major);
        }
    }

    /**
     * @presence {student.foo.included}
     */
    public foo() {
        console.log('Student foo');
        let hiccup = Math.random() * 10;
        let i = 0;

        while (i < hiccup) {

            // @presence {student.foo.hiccup}
            {
                let chance = Math.floor(Math.random() * 5);
                if (chance % 2 == 0) {
                    console.log('Hic!');
                }
            }
            
            // @presence {student.language.persian}
            {
                console.log('Salam!');
            }
            
            // @presence {student.language.french}
            {
                console.log('Bonjour!');
            }
            
            //@presence {student.language.english}
            {
                console.log('Hey!');
            }
            
            i++;
        }
    }

}

When we run Varion it'll iterate through all the HTML and TypeScript files and when it reaches the Student class and according to our configuration model, it'll run all the condition expressions defined in the Student class source file and check them against configuration and exclude annotated parts based on the configuration model if required and then derives the final source file.

For example, with the said above configuration our final source file would be:

class Student {
    private name: string;
    private studentNumber: number;
    private major: string;
    private gpa: number;


    public constructor(name: string, studentNumber: number, major: string, gpa: number) {
        this.name = name;
        this.studentNumber = studentNumber;
        this.major = major;
        this.gpa = gpa;
    }

    public toString() {
        console.log('Info:\n\t student_number: ' + this.studentNumber + '\n\t name: ' + this.name);

        // @presence {student.education.major and not (student.education.gpa)}
        {
            console.log('\t major: ' + this.major);
        }
    }

    /**
     * @presence {student.foo.included}
     */
    public foo() {
        console.log('Student foo');
        let times = Math.random() * 10;
        let i = 0;

        while (i < times) {

            // @presence {student.foo.hiccup}
            {
                let chance = Math.floor(Math.random() * 5);
                if (chance % 2 == 0) {
                    console.log('Hic!');
                }
            }
            
            // @presence {student.language.persian}
            {
                console.log('Salam!');
            }
            
            i++;
        }
    }

}

In case of HTML files checkout the example below:

This is our base HTML file:

<ul class="navbar" condition="navbar.included">
    <li><a href="index.html">Home page</a></li>

    <li><a href="musings.html">Musings</a></li>
    
    <presence condition="navbar.MyTownIncluded">
        <li><a href="town.html">My town</a></li>
    </presence>
    
    <li><a href="links.html">Links</a></li>
</ul>

After the variability is applied, based on the given configuration, it would become like this:

<ul class="navbar">
    <li><a href="index.html">Home page</a></li>

    <li><a href="musings.html">Musings</a></li>
    
    <li><a href="links.html">Links</a></li>
</ul>