An AOP Framework and Its Implementation Based on Conceptual Model

The change of base program's structure in AOP (Aspect-Oriented Programming) system will lead to the fragile pointcut problem. This paper presents an AOP framework and its implementation based on conceptual model. This framework regards the conceptual layer as the middle layer between base program and aspect, and it achieves decoupling between them by weaving the aspect into the object in the conceptual layer rather than into the base program directly. The conceptual model includes logical information, physical information and the mapping relationship between them. According to the information, the annotations of base program can be added or updated automatically, and the modification of base program can be updated to conceptual model automatically too. The program which described with logical information in the conceptual layer can be generated in accordance with annotated base program automatically. The definition of aspect refers to conceptual model and uses the logical information. The framework has solved the fragile pointcut problem in AOP application at the semantic level. Besides, it has solved the problems that the class name must be modified when client accesses evolved object and the field evolution of class cannot be supported in the old framework.