Aspect mining tries to identify crosscutting concerns in existing systems and thus supports the adaption to an aspect-oriented design. This talk describes an automatic aspect mining approach, based on dynamic or static program analysis. Program are investigated for recurring execution patterns based on different constraints, such as the requirement that the patterns have to exist in different calling contexts. A case study done with the implemented tool shows that most discovered crosscutting candidates are most often perfectly good style.
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After the identified aspect candidates are refactored, the new program has to be checked whether it still behaves correctly. Usually aspect application influences not only observable behavior but changes program flow internally. To test if an aspect works as intended, we use trace analysis to capture these internal changes. We demonstrate how trace analysis can be used for impact analysis.
