Messages point out potential problems in the input program; some are clearly problems (errors), but many more may depend on what the programmer intends. To keep the noise down the latter are treated as warnings which can be ignored by the programmer or information which are hidden. However, when investigating unexpected behavior it's helpful to show them. This section describes how to configure messages, presents some problem scenarios when compiling or doing load-time weaving, and summarizes some of the more relevant messages. The compiler offers -verbose, -warning, and -XLint options when invoked using the command-line, Ant, or embedded in an IDE. All options are listed in the AspectJ Development Environment Guide sections for Ajc and Ant Tasks. The Load-time Weaving section describes how to use XML configuration files and system properties to pass options to the weaver. (You can also pass options to the weaver using system properties in build- time weaving.) The -verbose option has the effect of including messages level "info", which are normally ignored. Both warning and XLint enable you to identify specific messages to emit, but warning messages tend to be the same provided by the underlying Eclipse JDT (Java) compiler, while XLint messages are emitted by the AspectJ compiler or weaver. Obviously, during load-time weaving only weaver messages will be emitted. Similarly, if aspects are compiled but not woven, then only compiler messages will be emitted. However, the usual case for the compiler/weaver working at build time is to emit both compiler and weaver messages. The tables below list some options, System Properties (for LTW only) and Java 5 annotations used to control AspectJ messages. The method of configuration depends on your environment so please refer to the relevant documentation for ajc, Ant or LTW. Option Description -verbose Show informational messages including AspectJ version and build date. -debug (Load-time weaving only). Show debugging messages such as which classes are being woven or those that are excluded. (This is not related to the compiler -g option to include debug information in the output .class files.) -showWeaveInfo Show weaving messages. -Xlint Control level of lint messages. messageHolderClass/ -XmessageHolderClass: In Ant tasks and LTW respectively specify the class to receive all messages. See iajc task options or Weaver Options. System Property Description aj.weaving.verbose Show informational messages including AspectJ version and build date (same as -verbose option). org.aspectj.weaver.showWeaveInfo Show weaving messages (same as -showWeaveInfo option). org.aspectj.weaving.messages Set this system property to enable tracing of all compiler messages. See . Annotation Description @SuppressAjWarnings Include this is Java 5 code to suppress AspectJ warnings associated with the next line of code. This means that the pointcut for the advice did not match, and it should be debugged as described in . You can use META-INF/aop.xml to control which messages are produced during LTW. The following example will produce basic informational messages about the lifecyle of the weaver in addition to any warning or error messages. ]]> The messages indicate which META-INF/aop.xml configurations file(s) are being used. Each message is also preceeded by the name of the defining class loader associated with weaver. You can use this information in a large system to distinguish between different applications each of which will typically have its own class loader. It is often difficult to determine, especially when using load-time weaving (LTW), why advice has not been woven. Here is a quick guide to the messages to look for. Firstly if you use the -verbose option you should see the following message when your aspect is registered: Secondly if you use the -debug option you should see a message indicating that you class is being woven: However this does not mean that advice has actually been woven into your class; it says that the class has been passed to the weaver. To determine whether your pointcuts match you can use the -showWeaveInfo option which will cause a message to be issued each time a join point is woven: If advice is woven at this join point you should get the corresponding message. The table below lists some useful -Xlint messages. Message Default Description aspectExcludedByConfiguration ignore If an aspect is not being woven, despite being registered, it could be that it has been excluded by either an include or exclude element in the aspects section of META-INF/aop.xml. Enable this message to determine whether an aspect has been excluded. adviceDidNotMatch warning Issued when advice did not potentially affect any join points. This means the corresponding pointcut did not match any join points in the program. This may be valid e.g., in library aspects or code picking up error conditions, but often the programmer simply made a mistake in the pointcut. The best approach is to debug the pointcut. invalidAbsoluteTypeName warning Issued when an exact type in a pointcut does not match any type in the system. Note that this can interact with the rules for resolving simple types, which permit unqualified names if they are imported. typeNotExposedToWeaver warning This means that a type which could be affected by an aspect is not available for weaving. This happens when a class on the classpath should be woven. runtimeExceptionNotSoftened warning Before AspectJ 5, declare soft used to soften runtime exceptions (unnecessarily). Since then, it does not but does issue this warning in case the programmer did intend for the exception to be wrapped. unmatchedSuperTypeInCall warning Issued when a call pointcut specifies a defining type which is not matched at the call site (where the declared type of the reference is used, not the actual runtime type). Most people should use 'target(Foo) && call(void foo())' instead.