Spring - Aspects

Spring Aspects are blocks of code that can be injected into the application at runtime

example logging, transaction management, caching, security.

- Spring uses AspectJ (byte code modification - run time interweaving) for aspecting.

Parts of spring Aspect

- Aspect - a class that implements enterprise application concerns that cut across multiple classes.                         Aspects can be a normal class configured through Spring XML configuration or we can use                     Spring AspectJ integration to define a class as Aspect using @Aspect annotation.

- Join Point - the place or specific point in the application code flow where the aspect code will be applied

- Point Cut - a selection criteria to select the 'Join Point' to apply the aspect code.

- Advice - The advice is the aspect class method that will be applied at the 'Join Point' selected by the 'Point Cut'

Point Cut:

Syntax: designator("r p.c.m(arg)")

r- return type

p- package

c-class

m-method

arg-arguments

designator-there are several designators provided by spring which can be used to implement an aspect.

e.g. execution - for matching method execution

        within-for matching within certain types

        target-for matching a specific type

        @annotation-for matching a specific annotation