A UML-based aspect-oriented design notation for AspectJ

ABSTRACT

AspectJ is a well-established programming language for the implementation of aspect-oriented programs. It supports the aspect-oriented programming paradigm by providing a special unit, called "aspect", which encapsulates crosscutting code. While with AspectJ a suitable aspect-oriented programming language is at hand, no feasible modeling language is available that supports the design of AspectJ programs. In this work, such a design notation for AspectJ programs is presented based on the UML. It provides representations for all language constructs in AspectJ and specifies an UML implementation of AspectJ's weaving mechanism. The design notation eases the perception of aspect-orientation and AspectJ programs. It carries over the advantages of aspect-orientation to the design level.

REFERENCES

• 1: AspectJ Team. The AspectJ Programming Guide. http://aspectj.org/doc/dist/progguide/index.html, Sep. 2001
• 2: AspectJ, http://www.aspectj.org, Ver. 1.0b, Sep. 2001
• 3: Grady Booch , James Rumbaugh , Ivar Jacobson, The Unified Modeling Language user guide, Addison Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Redwood City, CA, 1999
• 4: Clarke, S. Composition of Object-Oriented Software Design Models. PhD Thesis, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland, Jan. 2001
• 5: Siobhán Clarke , William Harrison , Harold Ossher , Peri Tarr, Subject-oriented design: towards improved alignment of requirements, design, and code, Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications, p.325-339, November 01-05, 1999, Denver, Colorado, United States
• 6: Siobhán Clarke , Robert J. Walker, Composition patterns: an approach to designing reusable aspects, Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Software Engineering, p.5-14, May 12-19, 2001, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• 7: Erich Gamma , Richard Helm , Ralph Johnson , John Vlissides, Design patterns: elements of reusable object-oriented software, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1995
• 8: Stefan Hanenberg , Boris Bachmendo , Rainer Unland, An Object Model for General-Purpose Aspect Languages, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Generative and Component-Based Software Engineering, p.80-91, September 09-13, 2001
• 9: William Harrison , Harold Ossher, Subject-oriented programming: a critique of pure objects, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, v.28 n.10, p.411-428, Oct. 1, 1993
• 10: Herrero, J. L., Sánchez, F., Lucio, F., Torro, M. Introducing Separation of Aspects at Design Time. in Proc. of AOP Workshop at ECOOP '00 (Cannes, France, Jun. 2000)
• 11: Gregor Kiczales , Erik Hilsdale , Jim Hugunin , Mik Kersten , Jeffrey Palm , William G. Griswold, An Overview of AspectJ, Proceedings of the 15th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, p.327-353, June 18-22, 2001
• 12: Kiczales, G., Lamping, J., Mendhekar, A., Maeda, Ch., Lopes, Ch., Loingtier, J.-M., Irwin, J. Aspect-Oriented Programming. in Proc. of ECOOP '97 (Jyväskylä, Finland, Jun. 1997), LNCS 1241, 220-242
• 13: Object Management Group (OMG). Unified Modeling Language Specification. Version 1.3, Mar. 2000
• 14: Harold Ossher , Matthew Kaplan , Alexander Katz , William Harrison , Vincent Kruskal, Specifying subject-oriented composition, Theory and Practice of Object Systems, v.2 n.3, p.179-202, 1996 [doi>10.1002/(SICI)1096-9942(1996)2:3<179::AID-TAPO4>3.0.CO;2-R]
• 15: Junichi Suzuki , Yoshikazu Yamamoto, Extending UML with Aspects: Aspect Support in the Design Phase, Proceedings of the Workshop on Object-Oriented Technology, p.299-300, June 14-18, 1999

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.2 Language Classifications
          Subjects: Design languages

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.2 Language Classifications

          Nouns: UML

General Terms:
Languages