Pipa: A Behavioral Interface Specification Language for AspectJ

Jianjun Zhao, Martin C. Rinard

Abstract: Pipa is a behavioral interface specification language (BISL) tailored to AspectJ, an aspect-oriented programming language. Pipa is a simple and practical extension to the Java Modeling Language (JML), a BISL for Java. Pipa uses the same basic approach as JML to specify AspectJ classes and interfaces, and extends JML, with just a few new constructs, to specify AspectJ aspects. Pipa also supports aspect specification inheritance and crosscutting. This paper discusses the goals and overall approach of Pipa. It also provides several examples of Pipa specifications and discusses how to transform an AspectJ program together with its Pipa specification into a corresponding Java program and JML specification. The goal is to facilitate the use of existing JML-based tools to verify AspectJ programs.