I am trying to write a macro that will allow me to do the following
(without-nesting
(:= x 1)
(:= y 2)
(:= z 3)
(db-call x y z)
(:= p 33)
(db-call x y z p))
becomes
(let [x 1
y 2
z 3]
(db-call x y z)
(let [p 33]
(db-call x y z p)))
So far my implementation has been the following
(defn assignment?
[[s _]]
(= s ':=))
(defmacro without-nesting
[& body]
(let [[bindings xs] (split-with assignment? body)
[non-bindings remaining] (split-with (complement assignment?) xs)]
`(let [~#(mapcat rest bindings)]
~#non-bindings
~(when (seq remaining)
`(without-nesting ~#remaining)))))
I'm having issues when remaining is going to be empty. In my current implementation a nil gets placed which prevents the last form in non-bindings to return its value. I have no clue on how to proceed with a recursive macro. Can someone help
UPDATE:
So I was able to get rid of the nil but I just want to know if there's a better way to deal with this
(defmacro without-nesting
[& body]
(let [[bindings xs] (split-with assignment? body)
[non-bindings remaining] (split-with (complement assignment?) xs)]
`(let [~#(mapcat rest bindings)]
~#non-bindings
~#(if (seq remaining)
[`(without-nesting ~#remaining)]
[]))))
Also would this be a good way to write code? Or do you see any caveats? For me it looks more linear as compared to nested let
I do see how ppl may abuse this. In the case of let, if the nesting becomes too much, then it's a hint to refactor the code. This might hide that
Just use let. It is already recursive. To incorporate function calls where you only care about the side effects, the convention is to bind to an underscore.
(let [x 1
y 2
z 3
_ (db-call x y z)
p 33
_ (db-call x y z p)])
I have a series of functions that all do different things but are passed the same data. Let's say I have the following as a parameter vector.
[{:keys [x y vx vy x-min x-max y-min y-max] :or {x-min 0 x-max c-width y-min 0 y-max c-height}}]
Basically the type of thing you do not want to have to repeat more than once. One thought I had was to do something like.
(def func-args [x y z])
(defn func func-args (+ x y z))
Then I could re-use func-args if I had a similar function. However the first line of the previous example throws an error that symbol x cannot be resolved.
Is there a way to leave vector members as symbols?
Is there a more idiomatic way to accomplish function parameter code bloat reduction than the method I am suggesting?
Quoting a vector will leave it's symbols unevaluated, however defn expects a literal vector in the definition, so this won't work like you're suggesting.
The easiest way to do this is to create a macro. Macros let you create your own syntax. This kind of (anaphoric) macro is discouraged in Clojure as it's easy to run into problems with macros that create symbols for you.
Something like:
(def cheight 100)
(def cwidth 100)
(defmacro defx [name & body]
`(defn ~name [{:keys [~'x ~'y ~'vx ~'vy ~'x-min ~'x-max ~'y-min ~'y-max]
:or {~'x-min 0 ~'x-max ~'c-width ~'y-min 0 ~'y-max ~'c-height}}]
~#body))
(defx func (+ x y))
(func {:x 1 :y 2}) ;; 3
Here is another way of doing it that accepts the function args spec vector as a parameter to the macro:
(defmacro defn-args
[fn-name fn-args & forms]
`(defn ~fn-name ~(eval fn-args) ~#forms))
(def square-args '[x] ) ; must quote [x] here
(defn-args my-square square-args (* x x))
(my-square 3)
;=> 9
I'm a Java and learning clojure.
What is exactly destructuring in clojure?
I can see this blog saying:
The simplest example of destructuring is assigning the values of a
vector.
user=> (def point [5 7])
#'user/point
user=> (let [[x y] point]
(println "x:" x "y:" y))
x: 5 y: 7
what he meant by assigning the values of a vector? Whats the real use of it?
Thanks in advance
point is a variable that contains a vector of values. [x y] is a vector of variable names.
When you assign point to [x y], destructuring means that the variables each get assigned the corresponding element in the value.
This is just a simpler way of writing:
(let [x (nth point 0) y (nth point 1)]
(println "x:" x "y:" y))
See Clojure let binding forms for another way to use destructuring.
It means making a picture of the structure of some data with symbols
((fn [[d [s [_ _]]]]
(apply str (concat (take 2 (name d)) (butlast (name s)) (drop 7 (name d))) ))
'(describing (structure (of data))))
=> "destructuring"
((fn [[d e _ _ _ _ _ i n g _ _ _ _ _ s t r u c t u r e & etc]]
[d e s t r u c t u r i n g]) "describing the structure of data")
=> [\d \e \s \t \r \u \c \t \u \r \i \n \g]
Paste those ^ examples into a REPL & play around with them to see how it works.
The term "Destructuring" sounds heavier than it is.
It's like visually matching shapes to shapes. For example:
(def nums [1 2 3 4 5 6])
(let [[a b c & others] nums]
;; do something
)
Imagine the effect of the let binding as:
1 2 3 4 5 6
| | | ( )
v v v v
[a b c & others]
;; Now we can use a, b, c, others, and of course nums,
;; inside the let binding:
user=> (let [[a b c & others] nums]
(println a)
(println b)
(println c)
(println others)
(println nums))
1
2
3
(4 5 6)
[1 2 3 4 5 6]
The goal is to concisely name items of a collection, for use inside the scope of a let binding or function (i.e. within a "lexical scope").
Why "concise"? Well, without destructuring, the let binding would look like this:
(let [a (nth nums 0) ;; or (first nums)
b (nth nums 1) ;; or (second nums)
c (nth nums 2)
others (drop 3 nums)]
;; do something
)
This illustrates the basic idea. There are many details (ifs and buts, and dos and don'ts), and it's worth reading further, in depth. Here are a few resources that explain more, with examples:
My personal favourite: Jay Fields's post on Clojure Destructuring:
http://blog.jayfields.com/2010/07/clojure-destructuring.html
A gentle introduction to destructuring, from Braveclojure:
http://www.braveclojure.com/do-things/#3_3_3__Destructuring
its used to name components of a data structure, and get their values.
Say you want to have a "person" structure. In java, you would go all the way to create a class with constructors, getters and setters for the various fields, such as name, age, height etc.
In Clojure you could skip the "ceremony" and simply have a vector with 3 slots, first for name, than for age and last for height. Now you could simply name these "components" and get their values, like so:
(def person ["Fred" 30 180])
(let [[name age height] person]
(println name age height)) ;; will print: Fred 30 180
p.s - there are better ways to make a "person" in clojure (such as records etc), this is just an example to understand what destructuring does.
Destructuring is a convenience feature which allows local bindings (not variables!) to be created easily by taking apart complex data structures (seq-ables like vectors, or associatives like hash-maps), as it is described here.
Take the following example:
(let [v [1 2 3 4 5 6]
v_0 (first v)
v_1 (nth v 1)
v_rest (drop 2 v)
m {:a 1 :b 2}
m_a (get m :a)
m_b (get m :b)
m_default (get m :c "DEFAULT")]
(println v, v_0, v_1, v_rest, m, m_a, m_b, m_default))
Then the above code can be simplified using destructuring bindings like the following:
(let [[v_0 v_1 & v_rest :as v]
[1 2 3 4 5 6]
{m_a :a m_b :b m_default :c :or {m_default "DEFAULT"} :as m}
{:a 1 :b 2}]
(println v, v_0, v_1, v_rest, m, m_a, m_b, m_default))
Destructuring patterns can be used in let bindings and function parameters (fn, defn, letfn, etc.), and also in macros to return let bindings containing such destructuring patterns.
One important usage to note is with the if-letand when-let macros. The if statement is always evaluated on the whole form, even if the destructured bindings themselves evaluate to nil:
(if-let [{:keys [a b]}
{:c 1 :d 2}]
(println a b)
(println "Not this one"))
Destructuring binds a pattern of names to a complex object by binding each name to the corresponding part of the object.
To bind to a sequence, you present a vector of names. For example ...
(let [[x y] (list 5 7)] ... )
... is equivalent to
(let [x 5, y 7] ... )
To bind to a map or to a vector by index lookup, you present a map of name-to-key pairs. For example ...
(let [{x 0, y 1} [5 7]] ... )
... is equivalent to both of the above.
As others have mentioned, you can find a full description of this powerful mechanism here.
Suppose you have three functions of arity 1, 2 and 3 as below:
(defn I [x] x)
(defn K [x y] x)
(defn S [x y z] (x z (y z)))
Does clojure have an evaluation function or idiom for evaluating:
(I K S I I) as (I (K (S (I (I)))))
returning a parital function of arity 2?
I am considering creating a macro that can take the simple function definitions above and expand them to multi-arity functions that can return partial results. I would not want to create the macro if there is already a built in or idiomatic way to accomplish this.
Here is what the expanded macros would like for the above functions:
(defn I
([x] I x)
([x & more] (apply (I x) more)))
(defn K
([x] (partial K x))
([x y] x)
([x y & more] (apply (K x y) more)))
(defn S
([x] (partial S x))
([x y] (partial S x y))
([x y z] (x z (y z)))
([x y z & more] (apply (S x y z) more)))
I'm not sure I fully understand what you are trying to do, but the comp function is useful for doing this kind of "function chaining" you seem to be talking about. For example:
user> ((comp vec rest list) 1 2 3 4 5)
=> [2 3 4 5]
Which is equivalent to:
user> (vec (rest (list 1 2 3 4 5)))
=> [2 3 4 5]
In your case, if you have the list (I K S I I), and you want to evaluate it as (I (K (S (I (I))))), I would use (reduce comp ...), but you could also use (apply comp ...).
user> ((reduce comp [vec rest list]) 1 2 3 4 5)
=> [2 3 4 5]
user> ((apply comp [vec rest list]) 1 2 3 4 5)
=> [2 3 4 5]
You may also be interested in the -> or ->> macros. These macros nest their arguments sequentially into the next arguments. The -> macro will nest into the first position of the next expression, whereas the ->> macro will nest into the last position of the next expression. If the "next thing" is a function, both will behave the same, and form an expression of (function nested-things-so-far), and continue along.
Really, examples are best:
(-> 1 (+ 10) (- 100) inc)
;//Expands to...
(inc (- (+ 1 10) 100))
;//Evaluating in the REPL...
user> (-> 1 (+ 10) (- 100) inc)
=> -88
(->> 1 (+ 10) (- 100) inc)
;//Expands to...
(inc (- 100 (+ 10 1)))
;//Evaluating in the REPL...
user> (-> 1 (+ 10) (- 100) inc)
=> 90
However, it seems more like you want to do something involving auto-currying (although, again, I don't think I fully understand), and for that I don't know of anything pre-existing built-in way.
I have the following defined in clojure:
(def ax '(fn x [] (+ 1 z)))
(let [z 4]
(str (eval ax))
)
:but instead of returning :
5
: I get :
Unable to resolve symbol: z in this context
: I have tried changing "let" to "binding" but this still does not work. Does anyone know what is wrong here?
Making the smallest possible changes to your code to get it to work:
(def ^:dynamic z nil)
(def ax '(fn x [] (+ 1 z)))
(binding [z 4]
(str ((eval ax)))
)
The two changes are defining z as a dynamic var, so that the name resolves, and putting another paren around (eval ax), because ax is returning a function.
A little bit nicer is to change the definition of ax:
(def ^:dynamic z nil)
(def ax '(+ 1 z))
(binding [z 4]
(str (eval ax))
)
So evaluating ax immediately gets the result you want, rather than returning a function that does it.
Nicer again is to skip the eval:
(def ^:dynamic z nil)
(defn ax [] (+ 1 z))
(binding [z 5]
(str (ax))
)
But best of all is to not have z floating around as a var, and pass it in to ax as Mimsbrunnr and Joost suggested.
The short answer is don't use eval. You almost never need to, and certainly not here.
For example:
user> (defn ax [z]
(+ 1 z))
#'user/ax
user> (let [f #(ax 4)]
(f))
5
Right so I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to do here.
I mean this works, though it's not using eval it's defining x to be the function (fn [ x ] (+ x 1))
> (def x #(+ 1 %))
#'sandbox102711/x
> (x 4)
5
In the end, eval is not something you should be using. As a Lisp Cljoure's support for lambda abstraction and macros ( see the fn definition above ) should remove the need.