Attribute-oriented programming


Attribute-oriented programming is a technique for embedding metadata, namely attributes, within program code.

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 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 supports a kind of attribute called stereotypes.

Tools

  • , an Annotation-Driven Java Program Transformer
  • , a Javadoc-Driven Program Generator