Xerox Corporation

Gregor J Kiczales

John Ogden Lamping

Cristina Lopes

Erik A Hilsdale

Michael D Dixon

Brian C Smith

James J Hugunin

Taher H Haveliwala

Venkatesh Choppella

Chandrasekhar Boyapati

Anurag D Mendhekar

Cristina V Lopes

A partial evaluator, or pre-compiler, for a computer program enables a user to provide, at suitable places within a program, language constructs which cause certain expressions within the program to be evaluated at runtime or at partial evaluation time. These language constructs can be used to shorten runtime, such as by avoiding unnecessary duplication of code at runtime.

Software constructs that facilitate partial evaluation of source code

A set of development tools is provided as part of an integrated development environment for supporting aspect-oriented programming such that aspects may easily be defined for embodying functionality which cross-cuts main program functionality in such a way that aspects transparently force their behavior on the main program. The editor and debugger of the integrated development environment embody functionality for accommodating this transparency.

Integrated development environment for aspect-oriented programming

An aspect oriented system for implementing system monitoring and tracing is provided in which the monitoring and tracing functionality needs not be coded into the resources being monitored or traced. Rather, an aspect is provided which encapsulates the monitoring/tracing behavior. This behavior may easily and transparently be forced onto the resource by compiling the object class for the resource along with the monitoring/tracing aspect. When the monitoring/tracing is no longer needed, it is removed simply by recompiling the resource object classes without the aspect.

Aspect-oriented system monitoring and tracing

The concept of a general purpose aspect is introduced where an aspect transparently forces cross-cutting behavior on object classes and other software entities. A reusable aspect is further described for use as part of an aspect library.

Aspect-oriented programming

A processor is provided with a software program specifying an overall computation that includes operations. Each operation implies a set of subcomputations, without explicitly specifying a control structure for carrying out the subcomputations according to a particular sequencing. The operations include a first and a second operation, and the provided software program further specifies how the first and second operations are combined in the overall computation. For example, the first and second operations can each imply, respectively, a first and a second computational loop, the first loop including the subcomputations of the first operation, the second loop including the subcomputations of the second operation. A description of possible sequencings of subcomputations of the first and second operations is provided, to be used in implementing the specified combination of the first and second operations, the description including a set of constraints on the sequencing of subcomputations of the first and second operations. A software program is automatically generated that includes a combined operation implementing the specified combination of the first and second operations. The combined operation has a control structure for carrying out the subcomputations of the first and second operations in accordance with the constraints. This control structure can be, for example, a computational loop. If the first and second operations imply, respectively, first and second computational loops, the control structure of the combined operation can be, for example, a computational loop including a fusion of the first and second loops.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Gregor J Kiczales