AspectC++ (original) (raw)
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AspectC++ Compiler
| Developer(s) | Olaf Spinczyk (project leader), Georg Blaschke, Christoph Borchert, Benjamin Kramer, Daniel Lohmann, Horst Schirmeier, Ute Spinczyk, Reinhard Tartler, Matthias Urban [1] |
|---|---|
| Initial release | November 6, 2001; 23 years ago (2001-11-06) [2] |
| Stable release | 2.3 / 17 February 2021; 3 years ago (2021-02-17) |
| Written in | C++ |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Source-to-source Compiler |
| License | GPL 2+ |
| Website | www.aspectc.org |
AspectC++ is an aspect-oriented extension of C and C++ languages. It has a source-to-source compiler, which translates AspectC++ source code into compilable C++. The compiler is available under the GNU GPL, though some extensions specific to Microsoft Windows are only available through pure-systems GmbH.
Aspect-oriented programming allows modularizing cross-cutting concerns in a single module, an aspect. Aspects can modify existing classes, but most commonly they provide 'advice' that runs before, after, or around existing functionality.
All calls to a specific function can be traced using an aspect, rather than inserting 'cerr' or print statements in many places:
aspect Tracer { advice call("% %Iter::Reset(...)") : before() { cerr << "about to call Iter::Reset for " << JoinPoint::signature() << endl; } };
The Tracer aspect will print out a message before any call to %Iter::Reset. The %Iter syntax means that it will match all classes that end in Iter.
Each 'matched' location in the source code is called a join point—the advice is joined to (or advises) that code. AspectC++ provides a join point API to provide and access to information about the join point. For example, the function:
returns the name of the function (that matched %Iter::Reset) that is about to be called.
The join point API also provides compile-time type information that can be used within an aspect to access the type or the value of the arguments and the return type and return value of a method or function.