Application-specific models and pointcuts using a logic meta language

Abstract

In contemporary aspect-oriented languages, pointcuts are usually specified directly in terms of the structure of the source code. The definition of such low-level pointcuts requires aspect developers to have a profound understanding of the entire application's implementation and often leads to complex, fragile, and hard to maintain pointcut definitions. To resolve these issues, we present an aspect-oriented programming system that features a logic-based pointcut language that is open such that it can be extended with application-specific pointcut predicates. These predicates define an application-specific model that serves as a contract that base-program developers provide and aspect developers can depend upon. As a result, pointcuts can be specified in terms of this more high-level model of the application which confines all intricate implementation details that are otherwise exposed in the pointcut definitions themselves. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.