Aspect-Oriented PHP

Bryan Saunders writes "

I am Bryan Saunders, and together with John Stamey and Matthew Cameron, we have developed an Extension to PHP to enable you to do Aspect-Oriented Programming with PHP. AOPHP 1.0 currently supports basic Before, After, and Around advice. Future versions will have more advanced support for these three types of advice. The Extension was developed using Java 1.5 and runs on Apache Web Servers. There are two parts to the implementation of AOPHP. The first involves using the Apache module ModRewrite, "the Swiss Army Knife of URL manipulation." The second is the aophpexec.aophp script which calls the AOPHP parser, written in Java 1.5. Aspects are written with a .aophp extension. These aspects are woven into incoming .php files by the Java AOPHP parser, contained in aophp.jar. For more information on AOPHP, visit http://www.aophp.net/ and For information on Aspect-Oriented Programming, visit http://www.aosd.net/ and http://www.aspectorientedprogramming.org/."

Comments

Please Explain

[RAMMS EIN]

Can someone please try to explain to me what aspect oriented programming is all about?

I've consulted various websites, and I took classes about it, but I still don't get it.

I know it has something to do with modifying the behavior of code after that code has been written. However, all the terminology confuses me. What is it, exactly? What are all the buzzwords? What can and can't it accomplish?

AOP is patented

[Matt Perry]

Aspect oriented programming is currently patented (US patent 6,467,086). Do you have permission from the patent holder to distribute this work, particularly under the GPL? As an end user, would I be likely to be sued if I use AOPHP in a project? Would the AOPHP developers be sued if I use this in a project? This isn't a troll, just my valid concerns before I spend any time seeing if this would help my development.

Note: yes, I know there is possible prior art to AOP but that doesn't change the fact that the USPTO has issued a patent on it.

Re:WTF?

[btsaunde]

I guess were nuts, because thats how it works. Your PHP Scripts are redirected to the AOPHP Weaver, witch then takes your code, weaves in the aspects, and sends the new PHP w/ Advice added to PHP to be parsed as usual