== AspectJ 1.9.0

_© Copyright 2018 Contributors. All rights reserved._

The full list of resolved issues in 1.9.0 is available
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=VERIFIED&bug_status=CLOSED&f0=OP&f1=OP&f3=CP&f4=CP&j1=OR&list_id=16866879&product=AspectJ&query_format=advanced&target_milestone=1.9.0[here]

_Release info: 1.9.0 available 2-Apr-2018_

=== Improved runtime interface

New factory methods have been added to the AspectJ runtime. This is an
attempt to more optimally create `thisJoinPoint` and
`thisEnclosingJoinPoint` objects. The generated code that invokes these
now also uses the ability for the `LDC` bytecode instruction to load class
constants directly (this replaces what was happening previously where
generated code referenced string class names and class-loading was being
done from the AspectJ runtime as the woven application was starting).

This is turned on by using `-Xajruntimetarget:1.9`. This option was used
previously to enable users to target an old runtime if they knew that
old runtime is all that was available at some deployed target. The new
generation mechanism is not the default, not until it has had a bit more
testing out in the wild.

The changes to generated code have a couple of potential side effects:

* *overall size*: the woven code may be smaller due to the use of
smaller string constant pieces in the generated code (previously strings
were smashed together in the generated code and then taken apart by
AspectJ at runtime). Since the pieces are smaller, they can be shared
across other uses in the class file.
* *method size*: although the overall class may be smaller there are
more instructions involved in preparing the data for invocation of the
new joinpoint factory methods. It is possible if you have a lot of
joinpoints that we might blow the 64k instruction limit for the
`ajc$preClinit` method (where the factory invocation code is generated).
Please provide feedback if this happens to you!

In anticipation of not all build plugins supporting that
`-Xajruntimetarget` option, you can now specify these kinds of option in
the `ASPECTJ_OPTS` environment variable. Set that in your environment:

[source, text]
....
export ASPECTJ_OPTS="-Xajruntimetarget:1.9"
....

And it should get picked up by AspectJ when it runs.

== AspectJ 1.9.0.RC4

_Release info: 1.9.0.RC4 available 21-Feb-2018_

Primary changes in RC4 are to add support for `<compilerArg>` in the Ant
task. This enables users of the Ant task to pass in options supported by
the underlying AspectJ but not yet surfaced elsewhere. Particularly
useful with Java9 which includes a number of module related commands.
For example, here is an `iajc` usage with `compilerArg` that is passing
`--add-modules java.xml.bind`:

[source, xml]
....
<iajc destdir="bin" failonerror="true"
  showWeaveInfo="true" source="1.9" target="1.9"
  debug="true"  fork="true" maxmem="256m">

  <compilerArg value="--add-modules"/>
  <compilerArg value="java.xml.bind"/>
  <src path="src" />
  <classpath>
    <pathelement location="${aspectj.home}/lib/aspectjrt.jar"/>
  </classpath>

</iajc>
....

== AspectJ 1.9.0.RC3

_Release info: 1.9.0.RC3 available 5-Feb-2018_

Primary changes in RC3 are to upgrade JDT and pickup all the fixes for
Java9 that have gone into it over the last few months.

== AspectJ 1.9.0.RC2

_Release info: 1.9.0.RC2 available 9-Nov-2017_

Key change in 1.9.0.RC2 is actually to be more tolerant of JDK10. The
version handling has been somewhat overhauled so AspectJ 9 will behave
better on Java 10 and future JDKs. This should put AspectJ in a better
place if new JDK versions are going to arrive thick and fast.

== AspectJ 1.9.0.RC1

_Release info: 1.9.0.RC1 available 20-Oct-2017_

This is the first release candidate of AspectJ 1.9.0 - the version of
AspectJ to be based on Java9. It includes a recent version of the
Eclipse Java9 compiler (from jdt core, commit #062ac5d7a6bf9).

=== Automatic Modules

AspectJ can now be used with the new module system available in Java9.
The key jars in AspectJ have been given automatic module names. The
automatic module name is `org.aspectj.runtime` for the `aspectjrt` module:

[source, text]
....
$ java --module-path <pathto>/lib/aspectjrt.jar --list-modules | grep aspectj

org.aspectj.runtime file:///<pathto>/lib/aspectjrt.jar automatic
....

And similarly `org.aspectj.weaver` and `org.aspectj.tools` for `aspectjweaver`
and `aspectjtools`, respectively:

[source, text]
....
$ java --module-path <pathto>/lib/aspectjweaver.jar --describe-module org.aspectj.weaver

org.aspectj.weaver file:///<pathto>/lib/aspectjweaver.jar automatic
requires java.base mandated
contains aj.org.objectweb.asm
contains aj.org.objectweb.asm.signature
contains org.aspectj.apache.bcel
contains org.aspectj.apache.bcel.classfile
contains org.aspectj.apache.bcel.classfile.annotation
contains org.aspectj.apache.bcel.generic
contains org.aspectj.apache.bcel.util
contains org.aspectj.asm
contains org.aspectj.asm.internal
...
....

=== Building woven modules

AspectJ understands `module-info.java` source files and building modules
that include aspects. Here is an example:

[source, java]
....
// module-info.java

module demo {
  exports pkg;
  requires org.aspectj.runtime;
}

// pkg/Demo.java

package pkg;

public class Demo {
  public static void main(String[] argv) {
    System.out.println("Demo running");
  }
}

// otherpkg/Azpect.java

package otherpkg;

public aspect Azpect {
  before(): execution(* *(..)) && !within(Azpect) {
    System.out.println("Azpect running");
  }
}
....

We can now build those into a module:

[source, text]
....
$ ajc -1.9 module-info.java otherpkg/Azpect.java pkg/Demo.java -outjar demo.jar

...
module-info.java:3 [error] org.aspectj.runtime cannot be resolved to a module
...
....

Wait, that failed! Yes, `aspectjrt.jar` (which includes the required
`org.aspectj.weaver` module) wasn't supplied. We need to pass it on the
module-path:

[source, text]
....
$ ajc -1.9 --module-path <pathto>/aspectjrt.jar module-info.java otherpkg/Azpect.java pkg/Demo.java -outjar demo.jar
....

Now we have a demo module we can run:

[source, text]
....
$ java --module-path <pathto>/aspectjrt.jar:demo.jar --module demo/pkg.Demo

Azpect running
Demo running
....

That's it!

=== Binary weaving with modules

A module is really just a jar with a _module-info_ descriptor. As such, you
can simply pass a module on the _inpath_ and binary-weave it with other
aspects. Take the module we built above, let's weave into it again:

[source, java]
....
// extra/AnotherAzpect.java

package extra;

public aspect AnotherAzpect {
  before(): execution(* *(..)) && !within(*Azpect) {
    System.out.println("AnotherAzpect running");
  }
}
....

[source, text]
....
$ ajc -inpath demo.jar AnotherAzpect.java -outjar newdemo.jar
....

Notice how there was no complaint here that the `org.aspectj.runtime`
module hadn't been passed in. That is because inpath was being used
which doesn't treat specified jars as modules (and so does not check
dependencies). There is no _module-inpath_ right now.

Because the new JAR produced includes the compiled aspect, the
_module-info_ specification inside is still correct, so we can run it
exactly as before:

[source, text]
....
$ java --module-path ~/installs/aspectj190rc1/lib/aspectjrt.jar:newdemo.jar --module demo/pkg.Demo

Azpect running
AnotherAzpect running
Demo running
....

=== Faster Spring AOP

Dave Syer recently created a https://github.com/dsyer/spring-boot-aspectj[series of benchmarks] for checking the speed
of Spring-AspectJ.

Here we can see the numbers for AspectJ 1.8.11 (on an older Macbook
Pro):

[source, text]
....
Benchmark                 (scale)  Mode  Cnt   Score   Error  Units
StartupBenchmark.ltw          N/A  avgt   10   2.553 ~ 0.030   s/op
StartupBenchmark.ltw_100      N/A  avgt   10   2.608 ~ 0.046   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring     v0_10  avgt   10   2.120 ~ 0.148   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring     v1_10  avgt   10   2.219 ~ 0.066   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    v1_100  avgt   10   2.244 ~ 0.030   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    v10_50  avgt   10   2.950 ~ 0.026   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    v20_50  avgt   10   3.854 ~ 0.090   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring   v20_100  avgt   10   4.003 ~ 0.038   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring     a0_10  avgt   10   2.067 ~ 0.019   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring     a1_10  avgt   10   2.724 ~ 0.023   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    a1_100  avgt   10   2.778 ~ 0.057   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    a10_50  avgt   10   7.191 ~ 0.134   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring   a10_100  avgt   10   7.191 ~ 0.168   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    a20_50  avgt   10  11.541 ~ 0.158   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring   a20_100  avgt   10  11.464 ~ 0.157   s/op
....

So this is the average startup of an app affected by aspects applying to
the beans involved. Where numbers are referenced the first is the number
of aspects/pointcuts and the second is the number of beans. The 'a'
indicates an annotation based pointcut vs a non-annotation based
pointcut ('v'). Notice things are much worse for annotation based
pointcuts. At 20 pointcuts and 50 beans the app is 9 seconds slower to
startup. +

In AspectJ 1.8.12 and 1.9.0.RC1 some work has been done here. The key
change is to recognize that the use of annotations with runtime
retention is much more likely than annotations with class level
retention. Retrieving annotations with class retention is costly because
we must open the bytes for the class file and dig around in there (vs
runtime retention which are immediately accessible by reflection on the
types). In 1.8.11 the actual type of the annotation involved in the
matching is ignored and the code will fetch *all* the annotations on the
type/method/field being matched against. So even if the match is looking
for a runtime retention annotation, we were doing the costly thing of
fetching any class retention annotations. In 1.8.12/1.9.0.RC1 we take
the type of the match annotation into account - allowing us to skip
opening the classfiles in many cases. There is also some deeper work on
activating caches that were not previously being used correctly but the
primary change is factoring in the annotation type.

What difference does that make? AspectJ 1.9.0.RC1:

[source, text]
....
Benchmark                 (scale)  Mode  Cnt  Score   Error  Units
StartupBenchmark.ltw          N/A  avgt   10  2.568 ~ 0.035   s/op
StartupBenchmark.ltw_100      N/A  avgt   10  2.622 ~ 0.075   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring     v0_10  avgt   10  2.096 ~ 0.054   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring     v1_10  avgt   10  2.206 ~ 0.031   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    v1_100  avgt   10  2.252 ~ 0.025   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    v10_50  avgt   10  2.979 ~ 0.071   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    v20_50  avgt   10  3.851 ~ 0.058   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring   v20_100  avgt   10  4.000 ~ 0.046   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring     a0_10  avgt   10  2.071 ~ 0.026   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring     a1_10  avgt   10  2.182 ~ 0.032   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    a1_100  avgt   10  2.272 ~ 0.024   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    a10_50  avgt   10  2.557 ~ 0.027   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring   a10_100  avgt   10  2.598 ~ 0.040   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring    a20_50  avgt   10  2.961 ~ 0.043   s/op
StartupBenchmark.spring   a20_100  avgt   10  3.093 ~ 0.098   s/op
....

Look at the a20_100 case - instead of impacting start time by 9 seconds,
it impacts it by 1 second.

=== More to come...

* Eclipse JDT Java 9 support is still being actively worked on and lots
of fixes will be coming through over the next few months and included in
AspectJ 1.9.X revisions.

* AspectJ does not currently modify `module-info.java` files. An aspect
from one module applying to code in another module clearly introduces a
dependency between those two modules. There is no reason - other than
time! - that this can't be done.
(https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=526244[Issue 526244])

* Related to that AspectJ, on detection of aspects should be able to
automatically introduce the `requires org.aspectj.runtime` to the
_module-info_. (https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=526242[Issue
526242])

* Module-aware variants of AspectJ paths: `--module-inpath`,
`--module-aspectpath`.
(https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=526243[Issue 526243])
