[aspectj-users] Instrumenting JDKs

[Tiago Espinha <tiago@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I've been looking around the Internet, and it seems like it's impossible (or at least failure-prone) to weave aspects into JDKs. I did it myself - I instrumented the rt.jar file from the latest Oracle JDK for Linux - and, whilst the weaving goes seemingly fine, I hit failures on runtime with such exceptions as NoSuchMethodError, relating to the aspect I wove.

What I cannot understand is the reason why JDK instrumentation is impossible. What makes it so different from instrumenting any other JAR? And does anyone know if there are workarounds to it?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Tiago