Composing architectural aspects based on style semantics

  • Authors:

  • Christina Chavez;Alessandro Garcia;Thais Batista;Marcel Oliveira;Claudio Sant'Anna;Awais Rashid

  • Affiliations:

  • Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil;Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil;Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil;Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil;Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil;Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 8th ACM international conference on Aspect-oriented software development
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

The lack of architecturally-significant mechanisms for aspectual composition might artificially hinder the specification of stable and reusable design aspects. Current aspect-oriented approaches at the architecture-level tend to mimic programming language join point models while overlooking mainstream architectural concepts such as styles and their semantics. Syntax-based pointcuts are typically used to select join points based on the names of architectural elements, exposing architecture descriptions to pointcut fragility and reusability problems. This paper presents style-based composition, a new flavor of aspect composition at the architectural level based on architectural styles. We propose style-based join point models and provide a pointcut language that supports the selection of join points based on style-constrained architectural models. Stability and reusability assessments of the proposed style-based composition model were carried out through three case studies involving different styles. The interplay of style-based pointcuts and some style composition techniques is also discussed.