Description Casier Koen 2004-01-30 05:00:19 EST

In the project I work, I have some existing interfaces which have similar 
implementations in Java. Implementing this interfaces is thus very simple using 
AspectJ attaching the implementations to the Interface.

something like the following:
---------------------------------------

public interface SomeInterface {
    public void someMethod();
}

          --------------

public class SomeImplementingClass {}

          --------------

public aspect SomeAspect {

    declare parents: SomeImplementingClass implements SomeInterface;

    public void SomeInterface.someMethod(){
        System.out.println("Test");
    }

}

--------------------------------------------------

When I do this everything works fine within the project.

1    public static void main(String[] args) {
2		SomeImplementingClass object = new SomeImplementingClass();
3        object.someMethod();
4        SomeInterface object2 = new SomeImplementingClass();
5        object2.someMethod();
6    }

works alright.

After building the project into a jar-file for release, I'm not able to use the 
methods in a pure java-project (error on line 3 and line 5). This means that 
the interface-methods dissappear and the introduced methods cannot be found.
When I use an AspectJ-project everything works fine. 

But: I want to be able to use the library in a pure Java-way. Having to work 
with AspectJ raises different problems:
1 - not all the users of the library are familiar with aspectJ
2 - The building-proces using aspectj in eclipse (or another IDE) takes more 
time
3 - I want it to be transparent to the user

I noticed a difference with this example in my project:
- I can use the introduced methods in the different classes (I don't know how 
I've done this), but I cannot see them with an auto-complete request in 
eclipse, but consider this an normal AJDT-problem to be fixed in the next 
release.
but still the interface-methods dissappear! (giving a compile-error)

I found a workaround in order to preserve the interfaces:
Creating an extending interface on which the methods can be introduced. This 
works, but I don't think this is a vaild solution for the future (it introduces 
a lot of overhead, and makes the code less readable)


I've checked the existing bug-reports and searched the user-mailing-list, and 
found nothing about this problem. However it is always possible that I've made 
a mistake and in that case I would be very grateful when I would receive a 
quick explanation of the error.

I would be very grateful if you'd keep me updated, since I would like to 
release a new version of my project very soon now.

Koen