Spring + AspectJ weaving for java 8 using aspectj-maven-plugin

Question

I'm migrating my project from java 7 to java 8 and the problem I have is related to aspectj weaving using aspectj-maven-plugin.

I could configure successfuly the weaving using this plugin running on Java 6 and 7 according to Haus documentation. But the problem is that I haven't found any way to use (and find) plugin version 7 that supports java 8. I saw here that plugin 7 adds java 8 support but couldn't find a way to use it.

This is the configuration plugin I need:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>aspectj-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.7</version> <!-- AspectJ weaver plugin 7 is for java 8 (version 1.6 is for java 7) -->
          <configuration>
              <complianceLevel>1.8</complianceLevel>
              <source>1.8</source>
              <target>1.8</target>
          </configuration>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>compile</goal>
                <goal>test-compile</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

I confirmed that above code using version 1.6 works fine for Java 7, but had no luck trying to use version 1.7.

Do you know how to run the weaver for spring+aspectj running on Java 8?

Answer 1

Solution before the official release prior to Sep 2015

After many headaches and many hours struggling against this, fortunately I could solve this problem. Here is what I did:

To use aspectj-maven-plugin with Java 8 I could configure version aspectj-maven-plugin 1.7 (Note that aspectj-maven-plugin 1.6 works for Java 7).

So, the maven plugin configuration needs to be:

<!-- AspectJ configuration -->
<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>aspectj-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.7-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <configuration>
        <complianceLevel>1.8</complianceLevel>
        <source>1.8</source>
        <target>1.8</target>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>compile</goal>
                <goal>test-compile</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

By the way, the aspectJ jars needed are:

<!-- Spring AOP + AspectJ -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
    <artifactId>aspectjrt</artifactId>
    <version>1.8.1</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-aop</artifactId>
    <version>4.0.4.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
    <artifactId>aspectjweaver</artifactId>
    <version>1.8.1</version>
</dependency>

The most important thing I've struggled was that to install the aspectj-maven-plugin 1.7 jar I had to do it manually since these jar/pom files aren't on maven repo yet.

Update: So, the jar file can be downloaded from Haus Jira link (look at the Attachment section). If Haus is not available anymore you can download it from my github:

https://github.com/fedepia/aspectj-maven-plugin-1.7

After download it and copy it to my local repo I needed to create my own aspectj-maven-plugin-1.7-SNAPSHOT.pom file within the directory:

.m2\repository\org\codehaus\mojo\aspectj-maven-plugin\1.7-SNAPSHOT\aspectj-maven-plugin-1.7-SNAPSHOT.pom

I based on a copy from version 1.6 but had to modify the following content:

<version>1.7-SNAPSHOT</version>

<properties>
    <aspectjVersion>1.8.1</aspectjVersion>
    <mavenVersion>2.2.1</mavenVersion>
    <changesPluginVersion>2.9</changesPluginVersion>
</properties>

That's all here you go, hope to help.

Update: (adding more details as Xtreme Biker asked in the comments)

In my context configuration I have:

<aop:aspectj-autoproxy /> 

<bean id="notificationAspect" class="com.integration.core.aspect.NotificationAspect" factory-method="aspectOf" scope="singleton"></bean>

For my java aspect I use:

@Aspect
public class NotificationAspect
{
   ...
   @AfterThrowing(pointcut="@annotation(com.integration.core.meta.NotifyOnFailure)", throwing="ex")
   public void executeOnException(JoinPoint joinPoint, ExternalApiExecutionException ex) throws Throwable
    {
    ...

---

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Finally official plugin released since Sep 2015

This is an update to the answer with the official plugin release. In order to use Java 8 with AspectJ, the official aspectj maven plugin can be found on this link:

http://www.mojohaus.org/aspectj-maven-plugin/usage.html

Here is the link to maven repository:

http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.codehaus.mojo/aspectj-maven-plugin/1.8

As the documentation stated the code to use it is:

<project>
  ...
  <dependencies>
    ...
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
      <artifactId>aspectjrt</artifactId>
      <version>1.8.7</version>
    </dependency>
    ...
  </dependencies>
  ...
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
        <artifactId>aspectj-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>1.8</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <goals>
              <goal>compile</goal>       <!-- use this goal to weave all your main classes -->
              <goal>test-compile</goal>  <!-- use this goal to weave all your test classes -->
            </goals>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
      ...
    </plugins>
  <build>
  ...
</project>