Towards An Open Trace-Based Mechanism

Real-world applications have to deal with issues related to security, as well as errors and crosscutting concerns. Different trace-based mechanisms with distinctive features have been proposed to solve these particular issues. For example, PQL matches sequence of unordered events, and tracematches match traces expressed with regular expressions. Despite that applications present these issues at the same time, there is not a single trace-based mechanism that supports the distinctive features of current mechanisms. Besides, lack of an expressive trace-based mechanism does not permit to include new features, therefore, developers end up “code around” these mechanisms to satisfy particular needs. In this position paper, we compare and relate the specific characteristics of current tracebased mechanisms. Finally, we present a model for an open tracebased mechanism.