Attribute-oriented programming

Attribute-oriented programming in various languages

C++

C++ has support for attributes. C++11 added attributes, which can indicate extra information to the compiler. C++26 added annotations for reflection.

C#

The C# language has supported attributes from its very first release. These attributes was used to give run-time information and are not used by a preprocessor. Currently with source generators, you can use attributes to drive generation of additional code at compile-time.

Hack

The Hack programming language supports attributes. Attributes can be attached to various program entities, and information about those attributes can be retrieved at run-time via reflection.

Java

Java has support for annotations. With the inclusion of Metadata Facility for Java (JSR-175) into the J2SE 5.0 release it is possible to utilize attribute-oriented programming right out of the box. XDoclet library makes it possible to use attribute-oriented programming approach in earlier versions of Java.

In Java, annotations are used for code generation and reflection.

UML

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) supports a kind of attribute called stereotypes.

Tools

• Annotation Processing Tool (apt)
• Spoon, an Annotation-Driven Java Program Transformer
• XDoclet, a Javadoc-Driven Program Generator

References

• {{cite web | access-date = 2006-03-21 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160303170619/http://www.cs.umb.edu/~jxs/pub/models05.pdf | archive-date = 2016-03-03
• {{cite web |url-status=dead

References

1. "The Java Community Process(SM) Program - communityprocess - final".