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The Meta in Meta-object Architectures

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Objects, Components, Models and Patterns (TOOLS EUROPE 2008)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 11))

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Abstract

Behavioral reflection is crucial to support for example functional upgrades, on-the-fly debugging, or monitoring critical applications. However the use of reflective features can lead to severe problems due to infinite meta-call recursion even in simple cases. This is especially a problem when reflecting on core language features since there is a high chance that such features are used to implement the reflective behavior itself. In this paper we analyze the problem of infinite meta-object call recursion and solve it by providing a first class representation of meta-level execution: at any point in the execution of a system it can be determined if we are operating on a meta-level or base level so that we can prevent infinite recursion. We present how meta-level execution can be represented by a meta-context and how reflection becomes context-aware. Our solution makes it possible to freely apply behavioral reflection even on system classes: the meta-context brings stability to behavioral reflection. We validate the concept with a robust implementation and we present benchmarks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Composition Group, University of Bern, Switzerland

    Marcus Denker

  2. ADAM, INRIA Nord Europe – LIFL – CNRS UMR 8022, France

    Mathieu Suen & Stéphane Ducasse

Authors
  1. Marcus Denker
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  2. Mathieu Suen
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  3. Stéphane Ducasse
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Richard F. Paige Bertrand Meyer

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Denker, M., Suen, M., Ducasse, S. (2008). The Meta in Meta-object Architectures. In: Paige, R.F., Meyer, B. (eds) Objects, Components, Models and Patterns. TOOLS EUROPE 2008. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 11. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69824-1_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69824-1_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-69823-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69824-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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