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Term Rewriting Meets Aspect-Oriented Programming

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Processes, Terms and Cycles: Steps on the Road to Infinity

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 3838))

Abstract

We explore the connection between term rewriting systems (TRS) and aspect-oriented programming (AOP). Term rewriting is a paradigm that is used in fields such as program transformation and theorem proving. AOP is a method for decomposing software, complementary to the usual separation into programs, classes, functions, etc. An aspect represents code that is scattered across the components of an otherwise orderly decomposed system. Using AOP, such code can be modularized into aspects and then automatically weaved into a system.

Aspect weavers are available for only a handful of languages. Term rewriting can offer a method for the rapid prototyping of weavers for more languages. We explore this claim by presenting a simple weaver implemented as a TRS.

We also observe that TRS can benefit from AOP. For example, their flexibility can be enhanced by factoring out hardwired code for tracing and logging rewrite rules. We explore methods for enhancing TRS with aspects and present one application: automatically connecting an interactive debugger to a language specification.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI), Kruislaan 413, NL-1098 SJ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Paul Klint, Tijs van der Storm & Jurgen Vinju

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  1. Paul Klint
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  2. Tijs van der Storm
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  3. Jurgen Vinju
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Computer Science, University of Innsbruck, Austria

    Aart Middeldorp

  2. Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 8, 3584 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Vincent van Oostrom

  3. Department of Theoretical Computer Science, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1081a, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Femke van Raamsdonk

  4. VU Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,  

    Roel de Vrijer

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Klint, P., van der Storm, T., Vinju, J. (2005). Term Rewriting Meets Aspect-Oriented Programming. In: Middeldorp, A., van Oostrom, V., van Raamsdonk, F., de Vrijer, R. (eds) Processes, Terms and Cycles: Steps on the Road to Infinity. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3838. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11601548_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11601548_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-30911-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32425-6

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