Aspect-oriented programming (aop) is a programming method developed by xerox parc and others. the basic idea is that in complex class systems there are certain aspects or behaviors that cannot normally be expressed in a coherent, concise and precise way. one example of such aspects are design patterns, which combine various kinds of classes to produce a common type of behavior. another is logging. for more information, see .

the perl aspect module is focused on subroutine matching and wrapping. it allows you to select collections of subroutines using a flexible pointcut language, and modify their behavior in any way you want.