Chapter 1. Terms

1.1. Overview

The section defines some basic terms that will be used throughout this guide.


A joinpoint is any point in your java program. The call of a method. The execution of a constructor the access of a field. All these are joinpoints. You could also think of a joinpoint as a particular Java event. Where an event is a method call, constructor call, field access etc...


An Invocation is a JBoss AOP class that encapsulates what a joinpiont is at runtime. It could contain information like which method is being called, the arguments of the method, etc...


An advice is a method that is called when a particular joinpoint is executed, i.e., the behavior that is triggered when a method is called. It could also be thought of as the code that does the interception. Another analogy is that an advice is an "event handler".


Pointcuts are AOP's expression language. Just as a regular expression matches strings, a pointcut expression matches a particular joinpoint.


An introduction modifies the type and structure of a Java class. It can be used to force an existing class to implement an interface or to add an annotation to anything.


An Aspect is a plain Java class that encapsulates any number of advices, pointcut definitions, mixins, or any other JBoss AOP construct.


An interceptor is an Aspect with only one advice named "invoke". It is a specific interface that you can implement if you want your code to be checked by forcing your class to implement an interface. It also will be portable and can be reused in other JBoss environments like EJBs and JMX MBeans.