Aspectual Caml: an Aspect-Oriented Functional Language

We propose an aspect-oriented programming (AOP) language called Aspectual Caml based on a strongly-typed functional language Objective Caml. Aspectual Caml o#ers two AOP mechanisms, namely the pointcut and advice mechanism and the type extension mechanism, which gives similar functionality to the inter-type declarations in AspectJ. Those mechanisms are not simple adaptation of the similar mechanisms in existing AOP languages, but re-designed for common programming styles in functional languages such as type inference, polymorphic types, and curried functions. We implemented a prototype compiler of the language and used the language for separating crosscutting concerns in application programs, including a type system separated from a compiler of a simple language