UVL - Universal Variability Language

UVL (Universal Variability Language) is a concise and extensible language for modeling variability in software product lines. It supports multiple programming languages and provides a grammar-based foundation for building tools and parsers.

This repository contains the ANTLR4 grammar files for UVL. With these, you can generate parsers for UVL tailored to specific programming languages like Java, JavaScript, and Python.

✨ Key Features

• Language-level modularity
• Namespaces and imports
• Feature trees with attributes and cardinalities
• Cross-tree constraints
• Extensible for different target languages

📦 Repository Structure

• uvl/UVLParser.g4 – Base grammar in EBNF form
• uvl/UVLLexer.g4 – Base lexer grammar for UVL
• uvl/Java/UVLJava*.g4, uvl/Python/UVLPython*.g4, etc. – Language-specific grammar files
• java/ – Java-based parser implementation using Maven (generated)
• python/ – Python-based parser implementation (generated)
• js/ – JavaScript-based parser implementation (generated)

UVL uses ANTLR4 as its parser generator.

Usage

To use UVL in your projects, you can either:

1. Use the pre-built parsers

   Java Parser

   Include the following dependency in your Maven project:

   <dependency>
       <groupId>io.github.universal-variability-language</groupId>
       <artifactId>uvl-parser</artifactId>
       <version>0.3</version>
   </dependency>

   Python Parser

   Install the package via pip:

   pip install uvlparser

   JavaScript Parser

   Install the package via npm:

   npm install uvl-parser

2. Build the parser manually See the sections below for details.

⚙️ Building the Parser manually

Java Parser

Prerequisites

• Java 17+
• Maven

Build Steps

1. Clone the repository:

 git clone https://github.com/Universal-Variability-Language/uvl-parser

2. Build the parser:

make java_parser

This will generate the jar file in the java/target/ directory. You can also build the JAR with:

cd java && mvn clean package

3. Include the generated JAR in your Java project.

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Python Parser

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• ANTLR4

Build Steps

1. Clone the repository:

 git clone https://github.com/Universal-Variability-Language/uvl-parser

2. Build the parser:

  make python_parser

This will generate the parser files in the python/ directory. To build the wheel package, run:

  make python_prepare_package

JavaScript Parser

Prerequisites

• Node.js 14+
• ANTLR4

Build Steps

1. Clone the repository:

 git clone https://github.com/Universal-Variability-Language/uvl-parser

2. Build the parser:

make javascript_parser

This will generate the parser files in the js/ directory.

💡 Universal-Variability-Language (UVL)

For comprehensive guidance on utilizing UVL, please refer to the following publication:

🔗 Sample UVL models are available at: https://github.com/Universal-Variability-Language/uvl-models

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📚 Resources

UVL Models & Tools

• https://github.com/Universal-Variability-Language/uvl-models
• https://www.uvlhub.io/

Tooling Ecosystem

• https://github.com/FeatureIDE/FeatureIDE
• https://ide.flamapy.org/
• https://github.com/Universal-Variability-Language/uvl-lsp
• https://github.com/SECPS/TraVarT
• https://github.com/AlexCortinas/spl-js-engine

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📖 Citation

If you use UVL in your research, please cite:

@article{UVL2024,
  title     = {UVL: Feature modelling with the Universal Variability Language},
  journal   = {Journal of Systems and Software},
  volume    = {225},
  pages     = {112326},
  year      = {2025},
  issn      = {0164-1212},
  doi       = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2024.112326},
  url       = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164121224003704},
  author    = {David Benavides and Chico Sundermann and Kevin Feichtinger and José A. Galindo and Rick Rabiser and Thomas Thüm},
  keywords  = {Feature model, Software product lines, Variability}
}

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📬 Contact & Contributions

Feel free to open issues or pull requests if you have suggestions or improvements. For questions or collaboration inquiries, visit the UVL Website: https://universal-variability-language.github.io/