Aspect-Oriented Security and Exception Handling within an Object Oriented System

The object-oriented paradigm, with its characteristics of inheritance, modularity, and polymorphism, has facilitated software reuse. However, the modularity and inheritance characteristics of object-orientation, has posed problems in the area of exception handling in terms of code tangling, repetitive code, and the possibility of spoofed parent classes managing the exception. We propose a method to incorporate parts of aspect-oriented programming, specifically security and exception handling mechanisms, into an object-oriented system in order to increase its modularity and reuse, centralize its security and exception handling, and provide enhanced verification and security of resource access. At the end, a small example is presented to illustrate our approach. Our goal is to eventually develop a methodology and tool to help automate the migration of legacy object-oriented systems to the aspect-oriented paradigm, particularly in regards to exception handling and security.