COMPASS: tool-supported adaptation of interactions

This paper presents an aspect-oriented approach and tool to consistently exchange and adapt interactions among software units. This is done by first identifying components, their interactions and interaction patterns. Second, the identified interaction points of components are represented as aspect-oriented ports encapsulating the source elements related to the interaction. The interactions themselves are represented as first-class entities in the form of aspect-oriented connectors connecting the ports of components. These component, port and connector entities constitute an architectural model. Third, the developer reconfigures and adapts interactions exchanging the port and connector entities. This triggers corresponding source code transformations realized as meta programs using the Recoder tool. This approach is implemented as the COMPASS (COM position with aspects) tool, that can currently analyze and transform Java source code based on the infrastructure provided by the Recoder framework. The approach and tool are successfully validated replacing a direct method call between a producer and a consumer component by communication via a buffer object