Scoped and Dynamic Aspects with Classboxes

Atomically introducing changes to a group of classes is a challenging task. In addition, certain applications require that changes be applied dynamically without shutting down and restarting the application. In this paper we present an extension of classboxes to make them dynamic. A classbox is a kind of module that supports class extension and instance variable addition. Class extensions and definitions defined in a classbox represent an aspect. In addition, with classboxes, aspects are dynamically applied to, removed from hot- in a system. Such aspects may crosscut a large number of classes which are extended by adding or redefining existing methods and adding new instance variables. Finally the aspects are scoped i.e., they are local to the classboxes that define them