AspectJ provides a special reference variable, thisJoinPoint, that contains reflective information about the current join point for the advice to use. The thisJoinPoint variable can only be used in the context of advice, just like this can only be used in the context of non-static methods and variable initializers. In advice, thisJoinPoint is an object of type org.aspectj.lang.JoinPoint.

One way to use it is simply to print it out. Like all Java objects, thisJoinPoint has a toString() method that makes quick-and-dirty tracing easy:

  class TraceNonStaticMethods {
      before(Point p): target(p) && call(* *(..)) {
          System.out.println("Entering " + thisJoinPoint + " in " + p);
      }
  }

The type of thisJoinPoint includes a rich reflective class hierarchy of signatures, and can be used to access both static and dynamic information about join points such as the arguments of the join point:

  thisJoinPoint.getArgs()

In addition, it holds an object consisting of all the static information about the join point such as corresponding line number and static signature:

  thisJoinPoint.getStaticPart()

If you only need the static information about the join point, you may access the static part of the join point directly with the special variable thisJoinPointStaticPart. Using thisJoinPointStaticPart will avoid the run-time creation of the join point object that may be necessary when using thisJoinPoint directly.

It is always the case that

   thisJoinPointStaticPart == thisJoinPoint.getStaticPart()

   thisJoinPoint.getKind() == thisJoinPointStaticPart.getKind()
   thisJoinPoint.getSignature() == thisJoinPointStaticPart.getSignature()
   thisJoinPoint.getSourceLocation() == thisJoinPointStaticPart.getSourceLocation()

One more reflective variable is available: thisEnclosingJoinPointStaticPart. This, like thisJoinPointStaticPart, only holds the static part of a join point, but it is not the current but the enclosing join point. So, for example, it is possible to print out the calling source location (if available) with

   before() : execution (* *(..)) {
     System.err.println(thisEnclosingJoinPointStaticPart.getSourceLocation())
   }