Partial Evaluation of Pointcuts

In aspect-oriented programming, pointcuts are usually compiled by identifying a set of shadows — that is, places in the code whose execution is potentially relevant for a pointcut — and inserting dynamic checks at these places for those parts of the pointcut that cannot be evaluated statically. Today, the algorithms for shadow and check computation are specific for every pointcut designator. This makes it very tedious to extend the pointcut language. We propose the use of declarative languages, together with associated analysis and specialisation tools, to implement powerful and extensible pointcut languages. More specifically, we propose to synthesize (rather than program manually) the shadow and dynamic check algorithms. With this approach, it becomes easier to implement powerful pointcut languages efficiently and to keep pointcut languages open for extension.