Here's an example of an aspect definition in AspectJ:

 1 aspect FaultHandler {
 2
 3   private boolean Server.disabled = false;
 4
 5   private void reportFault() {
 6     System.out.println("Failure! Please fix it.");
 7   }
 8
 9   public static void fixServer(Server s) {
10     s.disabled = false;
11   }
12
13   pointcut services(Server s): target(s) && call(public * *(..));
14
15   before(Server s): services(s) {
16     if (s.disabled) throw new DisabledException();
17   }
18
19   after(Server s) throwing (FaultException e): services(s) {
20     s.disabled = true;
21     reportFault();
22   }
23 }

The FaultHandler consists of one inter-type field on Server (line 03), two methods (lines 05-07 and 09-11), one pointcut definition (line 13), and two pieces of advice (lines 15-17 and 19-22).

This covers the basics of what aspects can contain. In general, aspects consist of an association of other program entities, ordinary variables and methods, pointcut definitions, inter-type declarations, and advice, where advice may be before, after or around advice. The remainder of this lesson focuses on those crosscut-related constructs.

AspectJ's pointcut definitions give names to pointcuts. Pointcuts themselves pick out join points, i.e. interesting points in the execution of a program. These join points can be method or constructor invocations and executions, the handling of exceptions, field assignments and accesses, etc. Take, for example, the pointcut definition in line 13:

pointcut services(Server s): target(s) && call(public * *(..))

This pointcut, named services, picks out those points in the execution of the program when Server objects have their public methods called. It also allows anyone using the services pointcut to access the Server object whose method is being called.

The idea behind this pointcut in the FaultHandler aspect is that fault-handling-related behavior must be triggered on the calls to public methods. For example, the server may be unable to proceed with the request because of some fault. The calls of those methods are, therefore, interesting events for this aspect, in the sense that certain fault-related things will happen when these events occur.

Part of the context in which the events occur is exposed by the formal parameters of the pointcut. In this case, that consists of objects of type Server. That formal parameter is then being used on the right hand side of the declaration in order to identify which events the pointcut refers to. In this case, a pointcut picking out join points where a Server is the target of some operation (target(s)) is being composed (&&, meaning and) with a pointcut picking out call join points (call(...)). The calls are identified by signatures that can include wild cards. In this case, there are wild cards in the return type position (first *), in the name position (second *) and in the argument list position (..); the only concrete information is given by the qualifier public.

Pointcuts pick out arbitrarily large numbers of join points of a program. But they pick out only a small number of kinds of join points. Those kinds of join points correspond to some of the most important concepts in Java. Here is an incomplete list: method call, method execution, exception handling, instantiation, constructor execution, and field access. Each kind of join point can be picked out by its own specialized pointcut that you will learn about in other parts of this guide.

A piece of advice brings together a pointcut and a body of code to define aspect implementation that runs at join points picked out by the pointcut. For example, the advice in lines 15-17 specifies that the following piece of code

{
  if (s.disabled) throw new DisabledException();
}

is executed when instances of the Server class have their public methods called, as specified by the pointcut services. More specifically, it runs when those calls are made, just before the corresponding methods are executed.

The advice in lines 19-22 defines another piece of implementation that is executed on the same pointcut:

{
  s.disabled = true;
  reportFault();
}

But this second method executes after those operations throw exception of type FaultException.

There are two other variations of after advice: upon successful return and upon return, either successful or with an exception. There is also a third kind of advice called around. You will see those in other parts of this guide.