[aspectj-dev] Stateful JoinPoints

["David J. Pearce" <d.pearce@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I am wondering if there is any interest in permitting 
JoinPoint.StaticPart instances to contain state in AspectJ and, indeed, 
if it is even possible.  The idea would be to allow extending the 
JoinPoint.StaticPart class to include whatever state was necessary. 
Then, from within an advice, this state could be accessed via a downcast.

The key use for this I have in mind is to permit per JoinPoint enable 
flags.  Thus, either inside the advice or via an if(...) pointcut, the 
advice code would be executed only if this flag is true, permitting 
dynamic, fine-grained control over when advice is applied.  In other 
words, we can at runtime prevent advice from being executed at 
individual JoinPoints.

One issue I can see is that, it would be desirable to change this flag 
outside of the advice itself.  Thus, some mechanism is needed to 
identify the individual JoinPoint instances.

Any help/comments on this would appreciated.

David J. Pearce