AspectML: A polymorphic aspect-oriented functional programming language

Abstract

This article defines AspectML, a typed functional, aspect-oriented programming language. The main contribution of AspectML is the seamless integration of polymorphism, run-time type analysis and aspect-oriented programming language features. In particular, AspectML allows programmers to define type-safe polymorphic advice using pointcuts constructed from a collection of polymorphic join points. AspectML also comes equipped with a type inference algorithm that conservatively extends Hindley--Milner type inference. To support first-class polymorphic point-cut designators, a crucial feature for developing aspect-oriented profiling or logging libraries, the algorithm blends the conventional Hindley--Milner type inference algorithm with a simple form of local type inference.

We give our language operational meaning via a type-directed translation into an expressive type-safe intermediate language. Many complexities of the source language are eliminated in this translation, leading to a modular specification of its semantics. One of the novelties of the intermediate language is the definition of polymorphic labels for marking control-flow points. When a set of labels is assembled as a pointcut, the type of each label is an instance of the type of the pointcut.

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Index Terms

• Mathematics of computing

  • Continuous mathematics

    • Calculus

      • Lambda calculus

  • Mathematical analysis

    • Calculus

      • Lambda calculus

• Software and its engineering

  • Software notations and tools

    • General programming languages

      • Language features

        • Abstract data types

        • Control structures

        • Polymorphism

        • Recursion

• Theory of computation

  • Semantics and reasoning

    • Program constructs

      • Functional constructs

      • Program schemes

      • Type structures