Abstract :
 

Context: Recently, software variants are adopted to build software product lines in the industry. In thisadoption, the available assets (features, source code, design documents, etc.) are reused to build a softwareproduct line rather than building it from scratch. The feature location is the first step in this adoption process.In the literature, numerous approaches were proposed to locate the implementations of features in the sourcecode.Objective: However, these approaches are guided using feature-specific information, which is not alwaysavailable, especially in legacy applications. In this study, a feature location approach is proposed withoutpredefined feature-specific information.Method: The proposed approach incorporates a mathematical research technique called formal conceptanalysis with other proposed algorithms. This combination is empirically evaluated using a benchmark casestudy.Results: The obtained results demonstrate that this combination achieves promising results in terms ofwell-known used metrics in this area: Recall, Precision, and F-measure.Conclusion: Also, the results show that the approach effectively finds features implementation across softwarevariants.