Spring-AOP pointcut not working?

Question

Below is my code snippet:

ServiceImpl.java

@Service
public class ServiceImpl implements Service {
  private Response worker(Audit send) throws ArgumentException {
    System.out.println("STEP_1");
    worker(send.getRequest(), send.getId());
  }

  private Response worker(Request request, String id) throws ArgumentException {
    System.out.println("STEP_2");
    try {
      //throwing some exception
    } catch (Exception e) {
      System.out.println("STEP_3");
    }
  }
}

Now, what I want is whenever NullPointerException is being thrown from method worker(Request request, String id) as shown above I want to perform some specific task. For that I have written an Aspect class which is following:

MyAspect.java

@Aspect
@Component
public class MyAspect{
  @Pointcut("com.xyz.myapp.ServiceImpl.worker() && args(request,..)")
  private void someOperation(Request request) {}

  @Before("someOperation(request)")
  public void process(Request request) {
    System.out.println("SUCCESS");
  }

  @AfterThrowing("com.xyz.myapp.ServiceImpl.worker() && args(request,..)")
  public void doRecoveryActions() {
    System.out.println("EXCEPTION_SUCCESS");
  }
}

Current Output:

STEP_1 
STEP_2
STEP_3

Desired Output:

STEP_1 
STEP_2
STEP_3
SUCCESS
EXCEPTION_SUCCESS

As you can see MyAspect.java is not getting triggered hence NOT printing values. What can be the reason for this?

Note:

1. I tried making worker as public classes too but it didn't work.

2. Also tried changing the name of the methods to eliminate any overloading issue that too didn't work.

3. Tried various other pointcut expressions all in vain as of now.

4. In my application there are other aspect classes working absolutely fine.

Answer 1

You made a typical Spring AOP beginner's mistake: You assume that it works for private methods, but as the documentation clearly says, it does not. Spring AOP is based on dynamic proxies, and those only work for public methods when implementing interfaces via JDK proxies and additionally for protected and package-scoped methods when using CGLIB proxies.

You should make the worker() method public if you want to intercept it from an aspect.

P.S.: Full-fledged AspectJ also works for private methods, but to switch to another AOP framework would be overkill here.

---

Update: You also have other problems in your code:

• The first worker method, even if you make it public, does not return anything. The last statement should be return worker(send.getRequest(), send.getId());, not just worker(send.getRequest(), send.getId());.
• Your pointcut com.xyz.myapp.ServiceImpl.worker() will never match because it has an empty argument list, but your method has arguments. The args() does not help you here.
• The syntax of your pointcut is also wrong because it does not specify a return type for the method, not even *. Furthermore, the method name itself is not enough, it should be enclosed in an actual pointcut type such as execution(). I.e. you want to write something like:

@Pointcut("execution(* com.xyz.myapp.ServiceImpl.worker(..)) && args(request, ..)")
private void someOperation(Request request) {}