JPIAspectZ: A Formal Requirement Specification Language for Joint Point Interface AOP Applications

Aspect-oriented software development (AOSD) solves a few issues of the object-oriented software development (OOSD) approach and adds a few more concerning modules and their relationships. Join point interface (JPI) is an AOSD methodology that by the definition of the interface between advised artifacts and aspects solves associated AOSD issues to get software with a high modularity level. Looking for a JPI software development approach, this article proposes and exemplifies the use of JPIAspectZ, an extension of the formal aspect-oriented language AspectZ for the software JPI requirement specifications. Mainly, JPIAspectZ looks for a concept and model consistency in a JPI software development process. Since the main JPI characteristics are the joining point interfaces definitions, i. e. explicit associations definition between aspects and advised modules, thus, by JPI, classes are no longer oblivious of possible interaction with aspects, and aspects, for their action effectiveness, do not depend anymore on signatures of advisable module components. JPIAspectZ fully supports these JPI principles. As JPI application examples, this article shows the formal requirements specification for classic aspect-oriented and JPI examples, along with describing the advantages and disadvantages of this language.