Reusing the same let bindings - clojure

I'm refactoring my test suite for a clojure application and am trying to figure out if there is a way to save let bindings for reuse to minimize copied code, as many tests require the similar setup but interfere with each other and require their own deftest. Ideally, I would like it to work a little like this:
(def let-bindings [bind1 val1 bind2 val2 bind3 val3])
(deftest test-1
(testing "my test"
(let (conj let-bindings [bind4 val4])
...)))
(deftest test-2
(testing "my second test"
(let (conj let-bindings [bind5 val5])
...)))
For added clarification, I need val1 and val2 to be evaluated in the test, not when defining the let bindings, as the calls affect the test database in a way that needs to be reset after each test. Does this mean I need a macro?

let is a special form so trying to metaprogram it without doing it in a macro won't work. Perhaps you should just define the common bindings instead:
(def bind1 val1)
(def bind2 val2)
(def bind3 val3)
(deftest test-1
(testing "my test"
(let [bind4 val4]
;; here bind1...bind4 would be available
...)))
...
EDIT
Here is how I imagine you could do it with a macro:
;; notice that the let will be recreated each time so if
;; val1 ... are computational hard consider caching.
(defmacro elet [ bindings & body ]
`(let [bind1 val1 bind2 val2 bind3 val3 ~#bindings]
~#body))
(deftest test-1
(testing "my test"
(elet [bind4 val4]
;; here bind1...bind4 would be available
...)))
...

To do this without macros you could go this way:
(def m {:a 1 :b 2})
(deftest foo []
(println (m :a)))
(foo)
;; prints 1
(let [m (assoc m :c 3)]
(deftest bar
(println (m :c))))
(bar)
;; prints 3

You can use fixtures to redefine dynamic bindings across tests and access the values within deftest. Fixtures can be defined once for all or each deftest.
(def ^:dynamic m)
(defn once-fixture
[tests]
(binding [m {:a 1 :b 2}]
(tests)))
(use-fixtures :once once-fixture)
(deftest testing-binding
(is (= (:a m) 1)
"Dynamic binding is working"))

Related

ClojureScript map destructure with defaults filled in?

Does Clojure/Script offer a way to build a destructured map out of the arguments plus filled-in defaults in case the keys weren't supplied in the call?
Consider this example (that doesn't quite do what the code implies by a quick glance). Does clojure provide a way to build the map prompt with these four keys and values either from the caller or the defaults. I hate to think I have to repeat these key names two more times to get what I am after.
(re-frame/reg-event-db
:open-prompt
(fn [db [_ {title :title
text :text
label-yes :label-yes
label-no :label-no
:or {title "Confirm"
text "Are you sure?"
label-yes "Ok"
label-no "Cancel"}
:as prompt}]]
(-> db
(update :state conj :modal-prompt)
(assoc :prompt prompt))))
After reviewing the official documentation page about destructuring, I don't think that Clojure proposes a more convient way of doing that.
But just by curiosity, I was wondering what is the code generated by destructuring, because I'm expecting it relies on macro stuff. Let consider this toy example:
(def my-map {:text "Some text"})
(let
[{title :title
:or {title "Confirm"}
:as prompt} my-map]
(str "I got " title " from " prompt))
;; => "I got Confirm from {:text \"Some text\"}"
(macroexpand '(let
[{title :title
:or {title "Confirm"}
:as prompt} my-map]
(str "I got " title " from " prompt)))
;; => (let*
;; [map__12555
;; my-map
;; map__12555
;; (if
;; (clojure.core/seq? map__12555)
;; (clojure.lang.PersistentHashMap/create
;; (clojure.core/seq map__12555))
;; map__12555)
;; prompt
;; map__12555
;; title
;; (clojure.core/get map__12555 :title "Confirm")]
;; (str "I got " title " from " prompt))
So as you can see, after a macro expansion, the :or mechanism which allows to specifies default value relies on clojure.core/get.
In this particular example, title is affected by (clojure.core/get map__12555 :title "Confirm") form. It's a way to avoid repeating the title variable, but does it worth it?
You can also check the source code of the destructuring macro to get full details about it, but personally I found it pretty difficult to handle ^^'.
it is doable, maybe not very practical though, but nice for self education:
let's begin with making up the function what would be special binding case.
let's say, we want to pass vectors of length 2 or 3, where vector of 2 will represent the simple binding map key-value pair like [:as abc] or [a :a], and the vector of size 3 would be k-v-default triple: [a :a "my default"]. The example of it's usage:
(bindings-preproc [['a 1 "asd"]
['b 2 "ddd"]
[:or {'x 10}]
[:as 'whole]])
resulting to
{a 1, b 2, :or {x 10, a "asd", b "ddd"}, :as whole}
this function could look like this:
(defn bindings-preproc [decls]
(let [defaults (into {} (keep (fn [decl]
(when (and (not (keyword? (first decl)))
(= 3 (count decl)))
(let [[nm _ default] decl]
[nm default])))
decls))
all-kvs (apply assoc {} (mapcat (partial take 2) decls))]
(update all-kvs :or merge defaults)))
(this one doesn't include error checks for the sake of illustrative simplicity)
The next thing is to employ it inside the binding macros. The idea to make bindings-preproc a macro fails, because binding forms are checked for validity before the inner macros are evaluated.
But still we have a feature, that would help, namely reader tags. They are used for example when you use #inst syntax. Since these reader tags are processed at read-time, before any macros are getting expanded, we can plug our preprocessor in.
(here i will use actual reference update, to demonstrate it from repl, but in real projects you would declare these tags in a special file)
user> (alter-var-root
#'default-data-readers
assoc 'my/reader #'user/bindings-preproc)
;;=> {uuid #'clojure.uuid/default-uuid-reader,
;; inst #'clojure.instant/read-instant-date,
;; my/reader #'user/bindings-preproc}
so, now we can try to make it work:
(defn f [#my/reader [[a :a 10]
[b :b 20]
[z :z]
[:keys [k1 k2 k3]]
[[c1 c2 & cs] :c]
[:or {z 101
k3 :wooo}]
[:as whole]]]
{:a a :b b :c1 c1 :c2 c2 :cs cs :z z :k1 k1 :k2 k2 :k3 k3 :whole whole})
user> (f {:a 1000 :c [:one]})
;;=> {:cs nil,
;; :c2 nil,
;; :z 101,
;; :c1 :one,
;; :k3 :wooo,
;; :b 20,
;; :whole {:a 1000, :c [:one]},
;; :k1 nil,
;; :k2 nil,
;; :a 1000}
user> (let [a 10
b 20
#my/reader [[x :x 1]
[y :y 2]
[z :z 100]] {:z 432}]
[a b x y z])
;;=> [10 20 1 2 432]
I like to make a map of all default values, then use into or similar to fuse the user-supplied values into the map of default values. For example:
(ns tst.demo.core
(:use tupelo.core tupelo.test) )
(def stuff-default {:a 1 :b 2})
(defn apply-defaults
[arg]
(let [stuff (glue stuff-default arg)] ; or use `into`. Last one wins, so put defaults first
(with-map-vals stuff [a b]
(newline)
(spyx a)
(spyx b))
stuff))
(dotest
(is= (apply-defaults {}) ; no inputs => all default values
{:a 1, :b 2})
(is= (apply-defaults {:a 100}) ; some inputs => partial defaults
{:a 100, :b 2})
(is= (apply-defaults {:a 100, :b 200}) ; all inputs => no defaults used
{:a 100, :b 200}))
Here glue is like into but with more error checking. We also use tupelo.core/with-map-vals to destruct the map, with less repetition than native Clojure destructuring (vals->map does the reverse).
The output is:
-------------------------------
Clojure 1.10.1 Java 14
-------------------------------
a => 1
b => 2
a => 100
b => 2
a => 100
b => 200
Ran 2 tests containing 3 assertions.
0 failures, 0 errors.

Passing compile-time state between nested macros in Clojure

I'm trying to write a macro that can be used both in a global and nested way, like so:
;;; global:
(do-stuff 1)
;;; nested, within a "with-context" block:
(with-context {:foo :bar}
(do-stuff 2)
(do-stuff 3))
When used in the nested way, do-stuff should have access to {:foo :bar} set by with-context.
I've been able to implement it like this:
(def ^:dynamic *ctx* nil)
(defmacro with-context [ctx & body]
`(binding [*ctx* ~ctx]
(do ~#body)))
(defmacro do-stuff [v]
`(if *ctx*
(println "within context" *ctx* ":" ~v)
(println "no context:" ~v)))
However, I've been trying to shift the if within do-stuff from runtime to compile-time, because whether do-stuff is being called from within the body of with-context or globally is an information that's already available at compile-time.
Unfortunately, I've not been able to find a solution, because nested macros seem to get expanded in multiple "macro expansion runs", so the dynamic binding of *ctx* (as set within with-context) is not available anymore when do-stuff gets expanded. So this does not work:
(def ^:dynamic *ctx* nil)
(defmacro with-context [ctx & body]
(binding [*ctx* ctx]
`(do ~#body)))
(defmacro do-stuff [v]
(if *ctx*
`(println "within context" ~*ctx* ":" ~v)
`(println "no context:" ~v)))
Any ideas how to accomplish this?
Or is my approach totally insane and there's a pattern for how to pass state in such a way from one macro to a nested one?
EDIT:
The body of with-context should be able to work with arbitrary expressions, not only with do-stuff (or other context aware functions/macros). So something like this should also be possible:
(with-context {:foo :bar}
(do-stuff 2)
(some-arbitrary-function)
(do-stuff 3))
(I'm aware that some-arbitrary-function is about side effects, it might write something to a database for example.)
When the code is being macroexpanded, Clojure computes a fixpoint:
(defn macroexpand
"Repeatedly calls macroexpand-1 on form until it no longer
represents a macro form, then returns it. Note neither
macroexpand-1 nor macroexpand expand macros in subforms."
{:added "1.0"
:static true}
[form]
(let [ex (macroexpand-1 form)]
(if (identical? ex form)
form
(macroexpand ex))))
Any binding you establish during the execution of a macro is no more in place when you exit your macro (this happens inside macroexpand-1). By the time an inner macro is being expanded, the context is long gone.
But, you can call macroexpand directly, in which case the binding are still effective. Note however that in your case, you probably need to call macroexpand-all.
This answer explains the differences between macroexpand and clojure.walk/macroexpand-all: basically, you need to make sure all inner forms are macroexanded.
The source code for macroexpand-all shows how it is implemented.
So, you can implement your macro as follows:
(defmacro with-context [ctx form]
(binding [*ctx* ctx]
(clojure.walk/macroexpand-all form)))
In that case, the dynamic bindings should be visible from inside the inner macros.
I'd keep it simple.
This is solution avoids state in an additional *ctx* variable. I think it is a more functional approach.
(defmacro do-stuff
([arg1 context]
`(do (prn :arg1 ~arg1 :context ~context))
{:a 4 :b 5})
([arg1]
`(prn :arg1 ~arg1 :no-context)))
(->> {:a 3 :b 4}
(do-stuff 1)
(do-stuff 2))
output:
:arg1 1 :context {:a 3, :b 4}
:arg1 2 :context {:b 5, :a 4}
there is one more variant to do this, using some macro magic:
(defmacro with-context [ctx & body]
(let [ctx (eval ctx)]
`(let [~'&ctx ~ctx]
(binding [*ctx* ~ctx]
(do ~#body)))))
in this definition we introduce another let binding for ctx. Clojure's macro system would then put it into the &env variable, accessible by the inner macros at compile-time. Notice that we also keep bindings so that inner functions could use it.
now we need to define the function to get the context value from macro's &env:
(defn env-ctx [env]
(some-> env ('&ctx) .init .eval))
and then you can easily define do-stuff:
(defmacro do-stuff [v]
(if-let [ctx (env-ctx &env)]
`(println "within context" ~ctx ":" ~v)
`(println "no context:" ~v)))
in repl:
user> (defn my-fun []
(println "context in fn is: " *ctx*))
#'user/my-fun
user> (defmacro my-macro []
`(do-stuff 100))
#'user/my-macro
user> (with-context {:a 10 :b 20}
(do-stuff 1)
(my-fun)
(my-macro)
(do-stuff 2))
;;within context {:a 10, :b 20} : 1
;;context in fn is: {:a 10, :b 20}
;;within context {:a 10, :b 20} : 100
;;within context {:a 10, :b 20} : 2
nil
user> (do (do-stuff 1)
(my-fun)
(my-macro)
(do-stuff 2))
;;no context: 1
;;context in fn is: nil
;;no context: 100
;;no context: 2
nil

Reusing destructuring for multimethods

Is there any way to reuse a destructuring between multiple methods in a multimethod?
(defmulti foo (fn [x] (:a x)))
(defmethod foo :1 [{:keys [a b c d e]}] (str a b c d e))
(defmethod foo :2 [a] "")
(defmethod foo :3 [a] "")
Now this is a trivial example, but imagine we have a much more complicated destructuring with nested maps and I want to use it on all my defmethods for foo. How would I do that?
A practical solution would be to only use the keys that you need for each individual method. An important thing to note about destructuring is that you don't have to bind every value in the collection you're destructuring. Let's say every map passed to this multimethod contains the keys :a through :e, but you only need a couple of those keys per method. You could do something like this:
; note: a keyword can act as a function; :a here is equivalent to (fn [x] (:a x))
(defmulti foo :a)
(defmethod foo :1 [{:keys [a b c d e]}] (str a b c d e))
(defmethod foo :2 [{:keys [b d]}] (str b d))
(defmethod foo :3 [{:keys [c e a]}] (str a c e))
If you have a complicated nested structure and you want to grab specific values, you can just leave out the keys you don't need, or alternatively, depending on your use case, a let binding within the function definition might end up being easier to read. Steve Losh's Caves of Clojure comes to mind -- in writing a roguelike text adventure game from scratch in Clojure, he used nested maps to represent the state of a game. Initially he wrote some of the functions using destructuring to access the inner bits of the "game state" map, e.g.:
(defmethod draw-ui :play [ui {{:keys [tiles]} :world :as game} screen]
...
But then later, he decided to make this code more readable by pulling the destructuring out into a let binding:
(defmethod draw-ui :play [ui game screen]
(let [world (:world game)
tiles (:tiles world)
...
The point is, if you're working with a deeply nested structure and you want to keep your code simple (especially if you're writing a multimethod with several methods taking that same structure as an argument), you may want to avoid using destructuring and just use let bindings to grab the pieces you want. get-in is a good tool for concisely getting values from nested collections. Going back to the Caves of Clojure example, if Steve just needed the tiles, he could have done something like this:
(defmethod draw-ui :play [ui game screen]
(let [tiles (get-in game [:world :tiles])
...
Personally, I find that much easier to read than mucking up the function arguments with {{:keys [tiles]} :world :as game}.
EDIT:
If you really want to avoid having to repeat the destructuring for each multimethod, and you want each method to have the same bindings available, you could write a macro:
(defmulti foo :a)
(defmacro deffoomethod [dispatch-val & body]
`(defmethod foo ~dispatch-val [{:keys [~'a ~'b ~'c ~'d ~'e]}]
~#body))
(deffoomethod 1 (str a b c d e))
(deffoomethod 2 (str b d))
(deffoomethod 3 (str a c e))
(foo {:a 1 :b 2 :c 3 :d 4 :e 5})
;=> "12345"
(foo {:a 2 :b \h :d \i})
;=> "hi"
(foo {:a 3 :b \x :c 0 :d \x :e 0})
;=> "300"
I wouldn't recommend this approach, though, as it breaks macro hygiene. Anyone using this macro has to remember that it binds the symbols a through e to the corresponding keys in the argument, and that could be problematic.

What is the difference between the reader monad and a partial function in Clojure?

Leonardo Borges has put together a fantastic presentation on Monads in Clojure. In it he describes the reader monad in Clojure using the following code:
;; Reader Monad
(def reader-m
{:return (fn [a]
(fn [_] a))
:bind (fn [m k]
(fn [r]
((k (m r)) r)))})
(defn ask [] identity)
(defn asks [f]
(fn [env]
(f env)))
(defn connect-to-db []
(do-m reader-m
[db-uri (asks :db-uri)]
(prn (format "Connected to db at %s" db-uri))))
(defn connect-to-api []
(do-m reader-m
[api-key (asks :api-key)
env (ask)]
(prn (format "Connected to api with key %s" api-key))))
(defn run-app []
(do-m reader-m
[_ (connect-to-db)
_ (connect-to-api)]
(prn "Done.")))
((run-app) {:db-uri "user:passwd#host/dbname" :api-key "AF167"})
;; "Connected to db at user:passwd#host/dbname"
;; "Connected to api with key AF167"
;; "Done."
The benefit of this is that you're reading values from the environment in a purely functional way.
But this approach looks very similar to the partial function in Clojure. Consider the following code:
user=> (def hundred-times (partial * 100))
#'user/hundred-times
user=> (hundred-times 5)
500
user=> (hundred-times 4 5 6)
12000
My question is: What is the difference between the reader monad and a partial function in Clojure?
The reader monad is a set of rules we can apply to cleanly compose readers. You could use partial to make a reader, but it doesn't really give us a way to put them together.
For example, say you wanted a reader that doubled the value it read. You might use partial to define it:
(def doubler
(partial * 2))
You might also want a reader that added one to whatever value it read:
(def plus-oner
(partial + 1))
Now, suppose you wanted to combine these guys in a single reader that adds their results. You'll probably end up with something like this:
(defn super-reader
[env]
(let [x (doubler env)
y (plus-oner env)]
(+ x y)))
Notice that you have to explicitly forward the environment to those readers. Total bummer, right? Using the rules provided by the reader monad, we can get much cleaner composition:
(def super-reader
(do-m reader-m
[x doubler
y plus-oner]
(+ x y)))
You can use partial to "do" the reader monad. Turn let into a do-reader by doing syntactic transformation on let with partial application of the environment on the right-hand side.
(defmacro do-reader
[bindings & body]
(let [env (gensym 'env_)
partial-env (fn [f] (list `(partial ~f ~env)))
bindings* (mapv #(%1 %2) (cycle [identity partial-env]) bindings)]
`(fn [~env] (let ~bindings* ~#body))))
Then do-reader is to the reader monad as let is to the identity monad (relationship discussed here).
Indeed, since only the "do notation" application of the reader monad was used in Beyamor's answer to your reader monad in Clojure question, the same examples will work as is with m/domonad Reader replaced with do-reader as above.
But, for the sake of variety I'll modify the first example to be just a bit more Clojurish with the environment map and take advantage of the fact that keywords can act as functions.
(def sample-bindings {:count 3, :one 1, :b 2})
(def ask identity)
(def calc-is-count-correct?
(do-reader [binding-count :count
bindings ask]
(= binding-count (count bindings))))
(calc-is-count-correct? sample-bindings)
;=> true
Second example
(defn local [modify reader] (comp reader modify))
(def calc-content-len
(do-reader [content ask]
(count content)))
(def calc-modified-content-len
(local #(str "Prefix " %) calc-content-len))
(calc-content-len "12345")
;=> 5
(calc-modified-content-len "12345")
;=> 12
Note since we built on let, we still have destructing at our disposal. Silly example:
(def example1
(do-reader [a :foo
b :bar]
(+ a b)))
(example1 {:foo 2 :bar 40 :baz 800})
;=> 42
(def example2
(do-reader [[a b] (juxt :foo :bar)]
(+ a b)))
(example2 {:foo 2 :bar 40 :baz 800})
;=> 42
So, in Clojure, you can indeed get the functionality of the do notation of reader monad without introducing monads proper. Analagous to doing a ReaderT transform on the identity monad, we can do a syntactic transformation on let. As you surmised, one way to do so is with partial application of the environment.
Perhaps more Clojurish would be to define a reader-> and reader->> to syntactically insert the environment as the second and last argument respectively. I'll leave those as an exercise for the reader for now.
One take-away from this is that while types and type-classes in Haskell have a lot of benefits and the monad structure is a useful idea, not having the constraints of the type system in Clojure allows us to treat data and programs in the same way and do arbitrary transformations to our programs to implement syntax and control as we see fit.

Why don't when-let and if-let support multiple bindings by default?

Why don't when-let and if-let support multiple bindings by default?
So:
(when-let [a ...
b ...]
(+ a b))
...instead of:
(when-let [a ...
(when-let [b ...
(+ a b)))
I am aware that I can write my own macro or use a monad (as described here: http://inclojurewetrust.blogspot.com/2010/12/when-let-maybe.html).
Because (for if-let, at least) it's not obvious what to do with the "else" cases.
At least, motivated by Better way to nest if-let in clojure I started to write a macro that did this. Given
(if-let* [a ...
b ...]
action
other)
it would generate
(if-let [a ...]
(if-let [b ...]
action
?))
and it wasn't clear to me how to continue (there are two places for "else").
You can say that there should be a single alternative for any failure, or none for when-let, but if any of the tests mutate state then things are still going to get messy.
In short, it's a little more complicated than I expected, and so I guess the current approach avoids having to make a call on what the solution should be.
Another way of saying the same thing: you're assuming if-let should nest like let. A better model might be cond, which isn't a "nested if" but more an "alternative if", and so doesn't fit well with scopes... or, yet another way of saying it: if doesn't handle this case any better.
Here is when-let*:
(defmacro when-let*
"Multiple binding version of when-let"
[bindings & body]
(if (seq bindings)
`(when-let [~(first bindings) ~(second bindings)]
(when-let* ~(vec (drop 2 bindings)) ~#body))
`(do ~#body)))
Usage:
user=> (when-let* [a 1 b 2 c 3]
(println "yeah!")
a)
;;=>yeah!
;;=>1
user=> (when-let* [a 1 b nil c 3]
(println "damn! b is nil")
a)
;;=>nil
Here is if-let*:
(defmacro if-let*
"Multiple binding version of if-let"
([bindings then]
`(if-let* ~bindings ~then nil))
([bindings then else]
(if (seq bindings)
`(if-let [~(first bindings) ~(second bindings)]
(if-let* ~(vec (drop 2 bindings)) ~then ~else)
~else)
then)))
Usage:
user=> (if-let* [a 1
b 2
c (+ a b)]
c
:some-val)
;;=> 3
user=> (if-let* [a 1 b "Damn!" c nil]
a
:some-val)
;;=> :some-val
EDIT: It turned out bindings should not be leaked in the else form.
If you use cats, then there is a mlet function that you might find useful :
(use 'cats.builtin)
(require '[cats.core :as m])
(require '[cats.monad.maybe :as maybe])
(m/mlet [x (maybe/just 42)
y nil]
(m/return (+ x y)))
;; => nil
As you can see, the mlet short-circuits when encountering a nil value.
(from section 6.5.1 nil)