Extending the Java Language with Dynamic Classification

The dynamic classification feature of an object-oriented programming language allows an object to change its class membership without changing its identity at runtime. The new membership of the object can be signified with a role, which is taken on by the object and which can be implemented as an object of the target class. Here, we propose an approach to extend the Java language with a dynamic classification mechanism, which can be implemented by extending the Java language, compiler, and standard library. We present a prototypical implementation of the mechanism to show the feasibility of the approach to dynamic classification.