Clojure and Leiningen: Why is `doall` needed in this example? - clojure

I'm currently using Leiningen to learn Clojure and I'm confused about the requirement of doall for running this function:
;; take a function (for my purposes, println for output formatting) and repeat it n times
(defn repeat [f n] (for [i (range n)] (f)))
(repeat println 2) works just fine in an REPL session, but not when running with lein run unless I include the doall wrapper. (doall (repeat println 2)) works and I'm curious why. Without it, lein run doesn't show the two blank lines in the output.
I also have:
(defmacro newPrint1 [& args] `'(println ~args))
(defmacro newPrint2 [& args] `'(println ~#args))
The first function I thought of myself. The next two macros are examples from a tutorial video I'm following on Udemy. Even if I wrap the macro calls with doall, such as (doall (newPrint1 1 2 3)), lein run produces no output, but (newPrint1 1 2 3) in a terminal REPL session produces the desired output of (clojure.core/println (1 2 3)) as it does in the video tutorial. Why doesn't doall work here?

for creates a lazy sequence. This lazy sequence is returned. The P in REPL (read eval Print loop) prints the sequence, thus realizing it. For realizing, the code to produce each element is run.
If you do not use the sequence, it is not realized, so the code is never run. In non-interactive use, this is likely the case. As noted, doall forces realization.
If you want to do side-effects, doseq is often better suited than for.

Related

How can I use macroexpand-1 from a source file instead of the REPL

What is the proper way to use macroexpand-1 for testing Clojure macros when not working at the REPL?
The problem is that your expressions outside of the deftest are being run at compile time, while *ns* is bound, and inside of a deftest they are being run later, at runtime, where *ns* is not bound.
Why does this matter? Because macroexpand needs to resolve the symbol iiinc in the current namespace in order to decide if it's a macro or not, and to find its definition if it is a macro, in order to call it. So, you see your macroexpand working at compile time but not at runtime.
What is the solution? Surely not to run your tests at compile time! Instead, you should properly namespace-qualify your forms, so that they do not depend on the compile-time convenience of *ns*. You could do this by hand, by writing
(deftest t-stuff
(println "(macroexpand-1 '(my.ns/iiinc 2)) =>" (macroexpand-1 '(my.ns/iiinc 2)))))
However, the right solution is to do what you should always do when quoting forms that are intended for later evaluation, just as when you write a macro: use syntax-quote, not regular quote. This way the compiler figures out the intended namespace for you at compile time, and inserts it in the form so that it's still there at runtime:
(deftest t-stuff
(println "(macroexpand-1 `(iiinc 2)) =>" (macroexpand-1 `(iiinc 2)))))
Suppose we want to test a macro that adds 3 to any value:
(defmacro iiinc [x]
`(+ 3 ~x))
Rather than working at the REPL, I usually prefer to use my favorite text editor/IDE to develop code, and use the lein test-refresh plugin to continually run my unit tests. However, this doesn't work when trying to use macroexpand-1 to iteratively develop a new macro.
The problem seems to be some conflict between macroexpand-1 and the deftest macro. So, the solution is to avoid using macroexpand-1 inside of a (deftest ...) form. However, it works great outside of deftest, even if it is still in the unit test source file. Here's an example:
; source file tst.clj.core
(newline)
(println "This works when not in (deftest ...)")
(println "(macroexpand-1 '(iiinc 2)) =>" (macroexpand-1 '(iiinc 2)))
(deftest t-stuff
(newline)
(println "But it is broken inside (deftest ...)")
(println "(macroexpand-1 '(iiinc 2)) =>" (macroexpand-1 '(iiinc 2)))
(newline)
(println "However, we can use the macro itself fine in our tests")
(println " (iiinc 2) =>" (iiinc 2))
(is (= 5 (iiinc 2)))) ; unit test works fine
The results of the above are:
This works when not in (deftest ...)
(macroexpand-1 '(iiinc 2)) => (clojure.core/+ 3 2)
Testing tst.clj.core
But it is broken inside (deftest ...)
(macroexpand-1 '(iiinc 2)) => (iiinc 2)
However, we can use the macro itself fine in our tests
(iiinc 2) => 5
Ran 1 tests containing 1 assertions.
0 failures, 0 errors.
Postscript
Please see the following answer for a
more complete discussion of how to write a macro in Clojure:
How do I write a Clojure threading macro?

Inconsistent test result between repl and regular file

Consider this test:
(deftest test
(is (= false (nil? (do
(def sym 0)
(resolve 'sym))))))
Put it into a repl and it will pass. Put it instead in a file and now it wont. How so ?
I tried messing with namespaces but without success.
I stumbled upon this question but it doesn't help me.

How to speed up this Clojure code?

I am a beginner in clojure. I am trying to solve this simple problem on codechef using clojure. Below is my clojure code but this code is taking too long to run and gives TimeoutException. Can someone please help me to optimize this code and make it run faster.
(defn checkCase [str]
(let [len (count str)]
(and (> len 1) (re-matches #"[A-Z]+" str))))
(println (count (filter checkCase (.split (read-line) " "))))
Note: My program is not getting timedout due to input error. On codechef input is handled automatically (probably through input redirection. Please read the question for more details)
Thank you!
Most text finding exercises are exercizes in regexps, this one no different. It's usually pretty hard to find a more efficient way in whatever programming language that will outpace good regexp implementations.
In this case re-seq, look around regexps, repetition limiting and the multiline regexp flag (?m) are your friends
(defn find-acronyms
[s]
(re-seq #"(?m)(?<=\W|^)[A-Z]+(?=\W|$)" s))
(find-acronyms "I like coding and will participate in IOI Then there is ICPC")
=> ("IOI" "ICPC")
Let's dissect the regex:
(?m) The multiline flag: lets you match your regex over multiple lines, so no need to split into multiple strings
(?<=\W|^) The match should follow a non-word character or the beginning of the (multiline) string
[A-Z]{2,} Match concurrent capital letters, a minimum of 2
(?=\W|$) The match should be followed by a non-word character or the end of the (multiline) string
I can only guess that wherever you run this snippet of code, it doesn't feed anything to your read-line invocation. Or maybe it does, but doesn't send a newline as the last thing. So it hangs waiting.
(defn checkCase [str]
(let [len (count str)]
(and (> len 1) (re-matches #"[A-Z]+" str))))
(defn answer [str]
(println (count (filter checkCase (.split str " ")))))
So at the REPL:
=> (answer "GGG fff TTT")
;-> 2
;-> nil
The answer is being printed to the screen. But probably best to have your function return the answer rather than print it out:
(defn answer [str]
(count (filter checkCase (.split str " "))))
All I have done is replaced your (read-line) with an argument. (read-line) is expecting input from stdin and waiting for it forever - or until a timeout happens in your case.
I am not sure if this is the slow part of your code, but if it is your could try to split up the execution and safe gard the very slow regexp part by executing it when it is necessary. I think the current version with AND already does that. If it does not you can try to do something else, like this:
(defn checkCase [^String str]
(cond
(< (.length str) 2)
false
(re-matches #"[A-Z]+" str)
true
:else
false))
maybe you could try using re-seq instead of spltting the string and checking every item? So you will lose the filter, .split, and additional function call. Something like this:
(println (count (re-seq #"\b[A-Z]{2,}?\b" (read-line))))
You need to submit a Java program. You can test it on the command line before you submit it. You can but don't need to use redirection symbols (<,>). Just type the input and see that every time you do it returns the count after you have typed enter.
You will need aot compilation (Ahead Of Time, which means that .class files are included) and a main that is exported. Only then will it become a Java program.
Actually when they ask for a Java program they probably mean a .class file. You can run a .class file with the java program (which I imagine is what their test-runner does). Put it in a shell or batch file when testing, but just submit the .class file.

Best way to read contents of file into a set in Clojure

I'm learning Clojure and as an exercise I wanted to write something like the unix "comm" command.
To do this, I read the contents of each file into a set, then use difference/intersection to show exclusive/common files.
After a lot of repl-time I came up with something like this for the set creation part:
(def contents (ref #{}))
(doseq [line (read-lines "/tmp/a.txt")]
(dosync (ref-set contents (conj #contents line))))
(I'm using duck-streams/read-lines to seq the contents of the file).
This is my first stab at any kind of functional programming or lisp/Clojure. For instance, I couldn't understand why, when I did a conj on the set, the set was still empty. This lead me to learning about refs.
Is there a better Clojure/functional way to do this? By using ref-set, am I just twisting the code to a non-functional mindset or is my code along the lines of how it should be done?
Is there a a library that already does this? This seems like a relatively ordinary thing to want to do but I couldn't find anything like it.
Clojure 1.3:
user> (require '[clojure.java [io :as io]])
nil
user> (line-seq (io/reader "foo.txt"))
("foo" "bar" "baz")
user> (into #{} (line-seq (io/reader "foo.txt")))
#{"foo" "bar" "baz"}
line-seq gives you a lazy sequence where each item in the sequence is a line in the file.
into dumps it all into a set. To do what you were trying to do (add each item one by one into a set), rather than doseq and refs, you could do:
user> (reduce conj #{} (line-seq (io/reader "foo.txt")))
#{"foo" "bar" "baz"}
Note that the Unix comm compares two sorted files, which is likely a more efficient way to compare files than doing set intersection.
Edit: Dave Ray is right, to avoid leaking open file handles it's better to do this:
user> (with-open [f (io/reader "foo.txt")]
(into #{} (line-seq f)))
#{"foo" "bar" "baz"}
I always read with slurp and after that split with re-seq due to my needs.

Whats wrong with this Clojure program?

I recently started reading Paul Grahams 'On Lisp', and learning learning clojure along with it, so there's probably some really obvious error in here, but I can't see it: (its a project euler problem, obviously)
(ns net.projecteuler.problem31)
(def paths (ref #{}))
; apply fun to all elements of coll for which pred-fun returns true
(defn apply-if [pred-fun fun coll]
(apply fun (filter pred-fun coll)))
(defn make-combination-counter [coin-values]
(fn recurse
([sum] (recurse sum 0 '()))
([max-sum current-sum coin-path]
(if (= max-sum current-sum)
; if we've recursed to the bottom, add current path to paths
(dosync (ref-set paths (conj #paths (sort coin-path))))
; else go on recursing
(apply-if (fn [x] (<= (+ current-sum x) max-sum))
(fn [x] (recurse max-sum (+ x current-sum) (cons x coin-path)))
coin-values)))))
(def count-currency-combinations (make-combination-counter '(1 2 5 10 20 50 100 200)))
(count-currency-combinations 200)
When I run the last line in the REPL, i get the error:
<#CompilerException java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Wrong number of args passed to: problem31$eval--25$make-combination-counter--27$recurse--29$fn (NO_SOURCE_FILE:0)>
Apart from the question where the error is, the more interesting question would be: How would one debug this? The error message isn't very helpful, and I haven't found a good way to single-step clojure code, and I can't really ask on stack overflow every time I have a problem.
Three tips that might make your life easier here:
Wrong number of args passed to: problem31$eval--25$make-combination-counter--27$recurse--29$fn (NO_SOURCE_FILE:0)>
Tells you roughly where the error occurred: $fn at the end there means anonymous function and it tells you it was declared inside recurse, which was declared inside make-combination-counter. There are two anonymous functions to choose from.
If you save your source-code in a file and execute it as a script it will give you a full stack trace with the line numbers in the file.
at net.projecteuler.problem31$apply_if__9.invoke(problem31.clj:7)
Note you can also examine the last exception and stack trace from within the REPL by examining *e eg: (.stackTrace *e) The stack trace is at first quite daunting because it throws up all the Java internals. You need to learn to ignore those and just look for the lines that refer to your code. This is pretty easy in your case as they all start with net.projecteuler
You can name your anonymous functions to help more quickly identify them:
(fn check-max [x] (<= (+ current-sum x) max-sum))
In your case using all this info you can see that apply-if is being passed a single argument function as fun. Apply does this (f [1 2 3]) -> (f 1 2 3). From your comment what you want is map. (map f [1 2 3]) -> (list (f 1) (f 2) (f 3)). When I replace apply with map the program seems to work.
Finally, if you want to examine values you might want to look into clojure-contrib.logging which has some helpers to this effect. There is a spy macro which allows you to wrap an expression, it will return exactly the same expression so it does not affect the result of your function but will print out EXPR = VALUE, which can be handy. Also on the group various people have posted full tracing solutions. And there is always the trusty println. But the key skill here is being able to identify precisely what blew up. Once you know that it is usually clear why, but sometimes printouts are needed when you can't tell what the inputs are.
dont have a REPL on me though it looks like:
(defn apply-if [pred-fun fun coll]
(apply fun (filter pred-fun coll)))
takes a list like '(1 2 3 4 5) filters some of them out '(1 3 5)
and then creates a function call like (fun 1 3 5)
and it looks like it is being called (apply-if (fn [x] with a function that wants to receive a list of numbers as a single argument.
you could change the apply-if function to just pass call to the fun (with out the apply) or you could change the call to it to take a function that takes an arbitrary number of arguments.