clojure-more readable way to write this function? - clojure

Question

I have written this function to convert a vector of maps into string. There is a second map called field-name-to-columns which contains a mapping between the field-name and the actual name of columns in my database.
My goal is to get a string like in the example where if the key is not present in the field-name-to-columns be ignored. Plus I want to have “client.name DESC” as a default if the :sorting key is empty or missing or none of the field-names matches any key in field-name-to-columns.
(def field-name-to-columns {"name" "client.name"
"birthday" "client.birthday"
"last-name" "client.last-name"
"city" "client.city"})
(def request {:sorting [{:field-name "city" :desc true}
{:field-name "country" :desc true}
{:field-name "birthday" :desc false}]})
(defn request-to-string
"this function creates the sorting part of query"
[sorting]
(if (empty? sorting)
(str "client.name" "DESC")
(->> (filter some? (for [{:keys [field-name desc]} sorting]
(when (some? (field-name-to-columns field-name)) (str (field-name-to-columns field-name) (when desc " DESC")))))
(st/join ", "))))
(request-to-string (request :sorting))
=>"client.city DESC, client.birthday"
Any comments on how to write this function more readable would be highly appriciated

Answer 1

What you've written is very reasonable in my opinion. I'd just add some whitespace for a visual break and tidy up your null handling a bit: it's silly to put nulls into the result sequence and then filter them out, rather than producing only non-nil values.
(defn request-to-string [sorting]
(str/join ", "
(or (seq (for [{:keys [field-name desc]} sorting
:let [column (field-name-to-columns field-name)]
:when column]
(str column (when desc " DESC"))))
["client.name DESC"])))
I've also moved the str/join up front; this is a stylistic choice most people disagree with me about, but you asked for opinions. I just think it's nice to emphasize that part by putting it up front, since it's an important part of the process, rather than hiding it at the back and making a reader remember the ->> as they read through the body of the function.
I also prefer using or rather than if to choose defaults, but it's not especially beautiful here. I also considered (or (non-empty (join ...)) "client.name DESC"). You might prefer either of these options, or your own choice, but I thought you'd like to see alternate approaches.

Answer 2

Here is one idea, based on my favorite template project.
(ns tst.demo.core
(:use demo.core tupelo.core tupelo.test)
(:require
[tupelo.string :as str]))
(def field-name->columns {"name" "client.name"
"birthday" "client.birthday"
"last-name" "client.last-name"
"city" "client.city"})
(defn field->string
[{:keys [field-name desc]}]
; give names to intermediate and/or temp values
(let [col-name (field-name->columns field-name)]
(when (some? col-name)
(str col-name
(when desc " DESC")))))
(defn request->string
"this function creates the sorting part of query"
[sorting]
; accept only valid input
(when-not sorting ; WAS: (str "client.name" "DESC")
(throw (ex-info "sorting array required, value=" {:sorting sorting})))
; give names to intermediate values
(let [fiels-strs (filter some?
(for [entry sorting]
(field->string entry)))
result (str/join ", " fiels-strs)]
result))
and unit tests
(verify
(is= (field->string {:field-name "city", :desc true}) "client.city DESC")
(is= (field->string {:field-name "country", :desc true}) nil)
(is= (field->string {:field-name "birthday", :desc false}) "client.birthday")
(let [sorting [{:field-name "city" :desc true}
{:field-name "country" :desc true}
{:field-name "birthday" :desc false}]]
(is= (spyx-pretty (request->string sorting))
"client.city DESC, client.birthday")))

Answer 3

I prefer the (->> (map ...) (filter ...)) pattern over the for macro:
(defn request-to-string [sorting]
(or (->> sorting
(map (fn [{:keys [field-name desc]}]
[(field-name-to-columns field-name)
(when desc " DESC")]))
(filter first)
(map #(apply str %))
(clojure.string/join ", ")
not-empty)
"client.name DESC"))