What's new in AJDT 1.4

To change the image for advice markers relating to an aspect select the aspect, file or project in the Package Explorer, right-click and select AspectJ Tools > Configure Advice Markers... from the context menu. Alternatively, the same option is available by right-clicking on an existing marker in the editor margin.

You can also choose to have no image for advice markers for a particular aspect.

Images can be selected from a list of samples, or from .gif or .png files contained in the project. If you want to provide your own they should be 12 pixels wide and no more than 14 pixels high and ideally have a transparent background.

Simply select one or more files or packages in the package explorer, right-click and select entries such as Include and Exclude from the Build Path context menu. This works with both .java and .aj files, in both Java and AspectJ projects.

When converting Java projects to AspectJ projects the current state of included and excluded files is preserved. The same is true in reverse, except that .aj files are automatically excluded as otherwise the Java builder will try to compile the AspectJ-specific source code in .aj files.

AJDT still offers the additional capability of being able to preserve an include/exclude configuration in a .ajproperties file, which can then be applied later as required.

The original crosscutting comparison functionality allows comparison between two projects (or more usually two versions of the same project). It is now possible to compare two elements within the same project. These elements can be either advice statements or declare error/warning statements. For example, to see whether two advice statements affect the same locations, select them both in the outline view (or package explorer) and select Comparing Crosscutting With > Each Other from the context-menu.

The Crosscutting Comparison view will then show the differences between the locations affected. One use of this would be when refactoring a pointcut from one which lists the join points to match individually, to one which attempts to match the same join points but with a more robust property-based pointcut.

You can also compare two declare error/warning statements, or compare one declare statement with an advice statement. This second combination can be particularly useful when refactoring code to use aspects. You might first use a declare warning statement to identify behaviour that is going to be handled by an aspect, such as certain calls to a method. You then write some advice to capture that policy, by advising the relevant methods. But you need to check that the advice is accurate, in that it affects the same locations identified by the declare warning. Such a comparison might look like this:

On its own this is not that useful (particularly when the number of advised locations is large), because the declare warning targets specific method calls, but the advice targets the execution of methods, so they all appear as differences in the comparison. This is where the Propagate Up button comes in! By selecting this the granularity of comparison is raised to the level of enclosing methods. This makes the significant difference between the two elements clear:

This shows that the declare warning affects a method (in this case it is a method call within that method) which is not also affected by the after advice. Naturally comparisons like this are most useful with large projects, where the crosscutting is more wide-spread.

Note: We are very grateful to Charles Zhang, Irum Godil, and Arno Jacobsen of the Middleware Systems Research Group at the University of Toronto for contributing this functionality, as part of their research into "Aspect Refactoring Verification" sponsored by the IBM CAS fellowship.