Aspect Extraction from Software Design Model

Aspect-Oriented programming was introduced by Gregor Kiczales in 1997 to handle concerns that could not be fully separated via Object-Oriented programming, which are called crosscutting concerns. Traditionally, aspect-oriented software development has focused on the software life cycle’s implementation phase: developers identify and capture aspects mainly in code. But aspects are evident earlier in the life cycle, such as during requirements engineering and design level. In this paper issues on different approaches for handling crosscutting concerns in requirement and design level were discussed. A practical process for identification and extraction of aspects in software design model was proposed. The process starts by checking the completeness of the model and adds non-functional requirements to UML’s use case model and validates the model’s relationships. Crosscutting concerns are identified in the design model during the next steps and then behavioral specifications of the model are analyzed with aspect identification perspective. Finally a formula for comparing different criteria based on WMC was proposed.