Achieving Smooth Component Integration with Generative Aspects and Component Adaptation

Abstract

Due to the availability of components and the diversity of target applications, mismatches between pre-qualified existing components and the particular reuse context in applications are often inevitable and have been a major hurdle of component reusability and successful composition. Although component adaptation has acted as a key solution of eliminating these mismatches, existing practices are either only capable for adaptation at a rather simple level, or require too much intervention from software engineers. This paper presents a highly automatic approach to component adaptation at adequately deep level. The adaptability and automation is achieved in an aspect-oriented component reuse framework by generating and then applying the adaptation aspects under designed weaving process according to specific adaptation requirements. An expandable library of reusable adaptation aspects at multiple abstraction levels has been developed. A prototype tool is developed to scale up the approach.