[aspectj-users] Re: [aspectj-dev] weaving incompatibility?

[Adrian Colyer <adrian_colyer@xxxxxxxxxx>]

You've touched on an important issue (I'm cc'ing aspectj-users for wider 
visibility).

In AspectJ 1.2.1 we changed the binary format of (some attributes in) 
aspects, and also introduced a version attribute in the class files we 
generate so that we would know which version of AspectJ created it. In 
AspectJ 5 M1 we changed the binary format of (some attributes in) aspects 
again (for example, to record annotation patterns in pointcut 
expressions).  What we didn't do in that milestone release is rev the 
class file version number (probably should have, certainly will before a 
release candidate).

Our binary compatibility policy is as follows:

* An aspect created by version n of the AspectJ compiler can be consumed 
by an AspectJ compiler (weaver) of version v, where v >= n.  (At some 
point in the future, we may have to change this policy to 
 n <= v >= (n+2), ie. backwards compatibility with two previous versions, 
but we haven't needed to make this restriction yet and will be sure to 
communicate clearly if we ever think we need to do so).

* We do not guarantee that an aspect created by version n of the AspectJ 
compiler can be consumed by an AspectJ compiler (weaver) of version v, 
where v < n.  (This is like the Java rules - a 1.5 class cannot be loaded 
into a 1.4 vm).

* An AspectJ weaver of version v, that reads in an aspect of version n, 
where n < v, will write out that same aspect at version v if it needs to 
write out any changes to it.

* An AspectJ program should always be run with the aspectjrt.jar runtime 
library that accompanies the distribution containing the compiler/weaver 
used to build it. 

A long answer to the question
> Should it be possible to weave AspectJ 5 aspects with an older weaver?

To which the short answer is "no".

However, instead of some IOException, what you should see is a nice 
message saying that the aspect was produced by a more recent version of 
AspectJ and cannot be read. Likewise, if you load a pre-aspectj 5 aspect 
into the AspectJ 5 weaver right now, you'll also see an IOException 
(odds-on). In M2 we'll detect that and use the back-level loaders to read 
it in.

Regards, Adrian.

-- Adrian
Adrian_Colyer@xxxxxxxxxx



Martin Lippert <lippert@xxxxxxx> 
Sent by: aspectj-dev-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx
16/12/2004 19:30
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Subject
[aspectj-dev] weaving incompatibility?






Hi,

I just observed a possible incompatibility between different AspectJ 
versions and would like to ask you whether this is a bug or not. I got 
problems in my load-time weaving environment (which is based on the 
AspectJ 1.2 code) when trying to load AJDT 1.2.0M2 compiled aspects. Any 
idea? Should it be possible to weave AspectJ 5 aspects with an older 
weaver?

Thanks a lot for the help!!!

Best regards,
-Martin

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