Aspects of composition in the reflex AOP kernel

Abstract

Aspect composition is a challenging and multi-faceted issue, generally under-supported by current AOP languages and frameworks. This paper presents the composition support provided in Reflex, a versatile kernel for multi-language AOP in Java. The core of Reflex is based on a model of partial reflection whose central abstractions are links: bindings between a (point)cut and an action. Reflex supports the definition of aspect languages through the mapping of aspects to links.. We overview the wide range of features for link composition in Reflex-which includes extensible operators for ordering and nesting of links, and control over the visibility of changes made by structural aspects-, illustrating how they can be used to implement various scenarios of aspect composition.