A Categorical Modeling Approach of Aspect-Oriented Systems

Aspect Oriented (AO) Technology is a post-object oriented technology emerged to overcome limitations of Object Oriented (OO) Technology, such as the cross-cutting concern problem. Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) also offers modularity and traceability benefits. Yet, reasoning, specification, and verification of AO systems present unique challenges especially as such systems evolve over time. Consequently, formal modular reasoning of such systems is highly attractive as it enables tractable evolution, otherwise necessitating that the entire system be reexamined each time a component is changed or is added. Besides, the aspect interactions problem is an open issue in aspect-oriented area. To deal with this problem, we choose to use category theory (CT) and algebraic specification(AS) techniques. In this paper, we present an aspect-oriented modeling (AOM) approach and a weaving algorithm. Our approach is expressive and allows for formal modular reasoning.