Aspectual Caml: an aspect-oriented functional language

We propose an aspect-oriented programming (AOP) language called Aspectual Caml based on a strongly-typed functional language Objective Caml with two AOP mechanisms similar to those in AspectJ language. This paper describes the design and implementation issues of those AOP mechanisms that give us insights into the interaction between AOP features and common features in strongly-typed functional languages such as type inference, polymorphic types and curried functions. We implemented a prototype compiler of the language and used the language for separating crosscutting concerns in application programs, including for separating descriptions of a type system from compiler descriptions.

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