Eliminating Execution Overhead of Disabled Optional Features in Connectors

Connectors are used to realize component interactions in component systems. Apart from their primary function, which is mediating the communication, their implementation can also support additional features that, while unrelated to the primary function, may benefit from their placement in connectors. Such features are often optional in the sense that they can be activated and deactivated at run-time. The problem is that even if they are disabled, their very presence in the connector incurs certain overhead. In this paper, we describe an approach to eliminate this overhead by reconfiguration of the connector implementation. Besides connectors, the approach is applicable to similar technologies such as reflective middleware and other architecture-based component systems and frameworks.