Joinpoint VS ProceedingJoinPoint in AOP using aspectJ?

Question

Can any one tell me what is the difference between Joinpoint and Proceedingjoinpoint?

When to use Joinpoint and Proceedingjoinpoint in the method of aspect class?

I used the JoinPoint in my AspectJ class like:

@Pointcut("execution(* com.pointel.aop.test1.AopTest.beforeAspect(..))")  
public void adviceChild(){}  

@Before("adviceChild()")  
public void beforeAdvicing(JoinPoint joinPoint /*,ProceedingJoinPoint pjp - used refer book marks of AOP*/){ 

    //Used to get the parameters of the method !
    Object[] arguments = joinPoint.getArgs();
    for (Object object : arguments) {
        System.out.println("List of parameters : " + object);
    }

    System.out.println("Method name : " + joinPoint.getSignature().getName());
    log.info("beforeAdvicing...........****************...........");
    log.info("Method name : " + joinPoint.getSignature().getName());
    System.out.println("************************"); 
}

But what I see in other resources is:

@Around("execution(* com.mumz.test.spring.aop.BookShelf.addBook(..))")
public void aroundAddAdvice(ProceedingJoinPoint pjp){
    Object[] arguments = pjp.getArgs();
    for (Object object : arguments) {
        System.out.println("Book being added is : " + object);
    }
    try {
        pjp.proceed();
    } catch (Throwable e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
} 

Here what will ProceedingJoinPoint do differently compare to 'JointPoint? Also what willpjp.proceed()` do for us?

Answer 1

An around advice is a special advice that can control when and if a method (or other join point) is executed. This is true for around advices only, so they require an argument of type ProceedingJoinPoint, whereas other advices just use a plain JoinPoint. A sample use case is to cache return values:

private SomeCache cache;

@Around("some.signature.pattern.*(*)")
public Object cacheMethodReturn(ProceedingJoinPoint pjp){
    Object cached = cache.get(pjp.getArgs());
    if(cached != null) return cached; // method is never executed at all
    else{
        Object result = pjp.proceed();
        cache.put(pjp.getArgs(), result);
        return result;
    }
}

In this code (using a non-existent cache technology to illustrate a point) the actual method is only called if the cache doesn't return a result. This is the exact way the Spring EHCache Annotations project works, for example.

Another specialty of around advices is that they must have a return value, whereas other advice types must not have one.