The LARA interpreter is a tool able to interpret an Aspect-IR and execute its aspects. larai, in its basis, can execute any arbitrary imperative code and execute tools and commands that are not part of larai. However, this interpreter cannot carry out weaving-related tasks, such as selecting points in the code and apply actions. In order to do so, larai can be connected to a [lara:docs:weavingengine|weaving engine] that is responsible of parsing the target source code, select join points and retrieve attribute information, apply actions, and generate the resulting code.

larai as a standalone has been used for different purposes:

• As scripting language
• Tools execution
• Coordination of a compilation flow (e.g. instrumentation→optimization→compilation→execution→profile).
• Design-space exploration (e.g. using previous objective)

NOTE: larai has a builtin larac, meaning that larac is not required as a separated tool for lara→Aspect-IR compilation and hence a .lara file may be given as input argument of larai.

This interpreter may be executed in two different ways: by command line for immediate execution of a lara file or by an IDE for developing and execute/test aspects.

larai is an executable jar file (download here) that always expects a .lara| file as the first input argument and has a set of optional arguments:

The following table provides a further explanation of the larac options.