AspectJTM is a seamless aspect-oriented extension to JavaTM. The compiler and development tools are available under an open-source license, require Java 8 to run, and produce code that runs in JDK 1.3 and later VM’s. For the latest materials, see https://eclipse.org/aspectj. Not all of these materials have been updated for AspectJ 5.
| Section | Contents |
|---|---|
FAQ, Quick Reference (AspectJ 5), Quick Reference (1.2.1), AspectJ 5 Developer’s Notebook, programming, development and problem diagnosis guides, runtime API, weaver API and example code |
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AspectJ project, the bug db, and mailing lists for users and developers. |
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for those new to AspectJ |
AspectJ documentation
| Documentation | Description |
|---|---|
Four-page quick reference for the AspectJ 5 language |
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Two-page quick reference for the AspectJ language |
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AspectJ 5 Developer’s Notebook |
Describes the changes to the AspectJ language and tools introduced in the AspectJ 5 Development Kit. These changes are additive, and are not yet reflected in the programming guide or quick reference. |
Programming Guide |
Introduces AOP and the AspectJ language. Getting Started describes basic semantics
and shows development- and production-time applications. The AspectJ Language describes
join points, pointcuts, advice, and introduction, all features new to AOP. Examples walks
you through the examples included with the documentation, and there are two short chapters on useful
Idioms and a few Pitfalls. |
Development Environment Guide |
Guide to the command-line compiler ajc and the Ant tasks for building AspectJ programs |
Problem Diagnosis Guide |
Guide to various debugging features available, such as messages and trace to help you both solve problems with you own programs and report bugs to the AspectJ team |
API documentation for AspectJ runtime classes. |
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API documentation for AspectJ weaver classes. This is a superset of the runtime API plus all the additional classes used for byte code weaving, both during compilation from source code and binary weaving during post-compile and load-time weaving. |
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Frequently asked questions about the AspectJ language, tools, and project |
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Compatibility matrix, explaining which AspectJ compiler version supports which Java language version and needs which JDK to run |
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Release notes |
Release notes, describing new features, improvements, bugfixes per AspectJ version: |
Changes (historical) |
Changes between historical releases up to 1.6.0 |
Porting guide (historical) |
Porting guide for historical releases to 1.2 |
AspectJ code to demonstrate some language features and implement JavaBean properties, the Observer pattern, a tracing library, and a game application where aspects handle display updating |
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AspectJ Design Overview |
Introductory information about AspectJ language design, developer guides, module structure |
AspectJ distributions
| Distributions | Description |
|---|---|
The AspectJ distribution contains a Java-based installer, binaries for the compiler, Ant taskdefs as well as the documentation and examples. |
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Source code for AspectJ is available under the open-source Eclipse Public License v 2.0 license from the Git repositories for the AspectJ project. See the FAQ entry. |
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AspectJ Development Environment support for Eclipse is available under Eclipse Public License v 1.0 from the eclipse.org project site https://eclipse.org/ajdt |
Other AspectJ resources
| Resources | Description |
|---|---|
Mail lists |
AspectJ users discuss tips and best practices for writing AspectJ programs on aspectj-users@eclipse.org. AspectJ developers discuss issues with developing the AspectJ tools on aspectj-dev@eclipse.org. To get occasional emails about AspectJ releases and relevant events, subscribe to aspectj-announce@eclipse.org. To view list archives or subscribe to the list, go to the AspectJ home page. To find archived emails, use the Eclipse site search page. |
Use the Eclipse project’s Bugzilla database to view and submit bugs against the AspectJ product components Compiler (for the AspectJ compiler, ajc), IDE (for AJDE bugs), Ant (for the Ant tasks) and Docs (for the documentation). Bugs all users should know about are flagged with the "info" keyword. See the FAQ entry for instructions on submitting compiler bugs. |
Suggested learning paths for those new to AspectJ
To learn the AspectJ language, read the Programming Guide, keeping the Semantics appendix nearby as the best reference for AspectJ usage. Focus initially on the join point model and pointcuts, concepts AOP adds to OOP. To read about how the examples work, see the Examples section in the Programming Guide. View and navigate the crosscutting structure using AJDT.
To start using AspectJ with your own code, modify the example aspects to apply to your classes. As you learn, use the
compiler’s -Xlint flags to catch some common mistakes. (Understand that the
current implementation is limited to code the compiler controls.)
To plan how to adopt AspectJ into a project, read the Programming Guide on development- and production-time aspects and the FAQ entries for How should I start using AspectJ?, Deciding to adopt AspectJ, the Development tools sections (How does AspectJ integrate with existing Java development tools?, Integrating AspectJ into your development environment, Load-time weaving), and AspectJ as open-source).
Enjoy the language!
The AspectJ Team