Cross-cutting Concern

Concern that affects the whole system and thus may impact multiple layers of the architecture. In aspect-oriented software development, cross-cutting concerns are aspects of a program that affect other concerns.

In aspect-oriented software development, cross-cutting concerns are aspects of a program that affect other concerns. These concerns often cannot be cleanly decomposed from the rest of the system in both the design and implementation, and can result in either scattering (code duplication), tangling (significant dependencies between systems), or both. For instance, if writing an application for handling medical records, the indexing of such records is a core concern, while logging a history of changes to the record database or user database, or an authentication system, would be cross-cutting concerns since they interact with more parts of the program.