Feature interaction problem: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:52, 20 June 2009

Revision as of 21:14, 20 June 2009

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The term ''feature'' is used to denote an unit of functionality. Similar to many concepts in computer science, the term can be used at different levels of abstraction. For example, the plain old telephone service (POTS) is a telephony feature at one level, but itself is composed of originating features and terminating features. The originating features may in turn include the provide dial tone feature, digit collection feature and so on.

This definition of ''feature interaction'' allows one to focus on certain behavior of the interacting features such as how their response time may be changed upongiven the integration. Many researchers in the field consider the problems that arise due to change in the execution ''behavior'' of the interacting features. Under that context, the ''behavior'' of a feature is defined by its execution flow and output for a given input. In other words, the interaction changes the execution flow and output of the interacting features for a given input.