If I have a string ":my.keyword/new" is there a reader literal to use to read it into a keyword? I know there is the keyword function but doing this:
(keyword ":my.keyword/new")
gives
::my.keyword/new
and I don't want the double colon
I would rather not have to remove the colon with string/split first.
There is indeed a reader literal for keywords:
:my.keyword/new
If you want to create a keyword programmatically, you can do so with the keyword function, as you noted:
(keyword "my.keyword/new")
;=> :my.keyword/new
(keyword "my.keyword" "new")
;=> :my.keyword/new
Finally, if you want to read a readable form (such as a keyword) into a data structure, you can use clojure.edn/read-string:
(require '[clojure.edn :as edn])
;=> nil
(edn/read-string ":my.keyword/new")
;=> :my.keyword/new
Use clojure.edn/read-string:
user> (clojure.edn/read-string ":my.keyword/new")
:my.keyword/new
This will safely convert string into datastructure.
Related
I am trying to print the documentation for all functions in a given namespace by invoking the following expression in a REPL:
(doseq
[f (dir-fn 'clojure.repl)]
(doc f))
However the invocation of this expression returns nil without printing the documentation to the REPL. I know this might have to do with doc being a macro, but I'm a Clojure novice and am not entirely sure how to understand the problem.
Why does this expression return nil without printing the documentation?
How can this expression be modified so that it prints the documentation for each function in a given namespace?
Thanks!
Update: Combined both provided answers:
(defn ns-docs [ns']
(doseq [[symbol var] (ns-interns ns')]
(newline)
(println symbol)
(print " ")
(println (:doc (meta var)))))
(ns-docs 'clojure.repl)
I would, instead, start here:
The Clojure CheatSheet
ClojureDocs.org
Clojure-Doc.org (similar name, but different)
The API & Reference sections at Clojure.org
Note that doc is in the namespace clojure.repl, which reflects its intended usage (by a human in a repl). Here is some code that will also iterate on a namespace & print doc strings (using a different technique):
(doseq [[fn-symbol fn-var] (ns-interns 'demo.core)]
(newline)
(println fn-symbol)
(println (:doc (meta fn-var))))
where demo.core is the namespace of interest.
Note that ns-interns gives you both a symbol and var like:
fn-symbol => <#clojure.lang.Symbol -main>
fn-var => <#clojure.lang.Var #'demo.core/-main>
The meta function has lots of other info you may want to use someday:
(meta fn-var) =>
<#clojure.lang.PersistentArrayMap
{ :arglists ([& args]),
:doc "The Main Man!",
:line 9, :column 1,
:file "demo/core.clj",
:name -main,
:ns #object[clojure.lang.Namespace 0x14c35a06 "demo.core"]}>
While this probably won't help you with answering your question, the problem of evaluating macro's comes up a lot when you are learning Clojure.
Macros are responsible for the evaluation of their arguments. In this case clojure.repl/doc will ignore the current lexical context and assume that the symbol f that you're giving it is the name of a function you want to see the documentation for. It does this because it's intended to be used at the REPL, and is assuming you wouldn't want to type quotes all the time.
As f doesn't exist, it prints nothing. Then doseq returns nil, since it exists to do something for side effects only - hence starting in do. In order to pass an argument to a macro that refuses to respect the lexical context like this, you need to write the code for each element in the list.
You can do this by hand, or by constructing the code as data, and passing it to eval to execute. You can do this in an imperative style, using doseq:
(doseq [f (ns-interns 'clojure.repl)]
(eval `(doc ~(symbol "clojure.repl" (str (first f))))))
or in a slightly more Clojurey way (which will allow you to see the code that it would execute by removing eval from the end and running it at the REPL):
(->> (ns-interns 'clojure.repl)
(map #(list 'clojure.repl/doc (symbol "clojure.repl" (str (first %)))))
(cons `do)
eval)
In both of these we use quote and syntax-quote to construct some code from the list of symbols reflected from the namespace, and pass it to eval to actually execute it. This page on Clojure's weird characters should point you in the right direction for understanding what's going on here.
This an example of why you shouldn't write macro's, unless you've got no other options. Macro's do not compose, and are often difficult to work with. For a more in depth discussion, Fogus's talk and Christophe Grand's talk are both good talks.
Why does this expression return nil without printing the documentation?
Because the doc macro is receiving the symbol f from your loop, instead of a function symbol directly.
How can this expression be modified so that it prints the documentation for each function in a given namespace?
(defn ns-docs [ns']
(let [metas (->> (ns-interns ns') (vals) (map meta) (sort-by :name))]
(for [m metas :when (:doc m)] ;; you could filter here if you want fns only
(select-keys m [:name :doc]))))
(ns-docs 'clojure.repl)
=>
({:name apropos,
:doc "Given a regular expression or stringable thing, return a seq of all
public definitions in all currently-loaded namespaces that match the
str-or-pattern."}
...
)
Then you can print those maps/strings if you want.
I want to get following results when I evaluate edit-url and (edit-url 1).
edit-url --> "/articles/:id/edit"
(edit-url 1) --> "/articles/1/edit"
Is it possible to define such a Var or something?
Now, I use following function, but I don't want to write (edit-url) to get const string.
(defn edit-url
([] "/articles/:id/edit")
([id] (str "/articles/" id "/edit")))
Thanks in advance.
If those behaviors are exactly what you want, print-method and tagged literals may be used to imitate them.
(defrecord Path [path]
clojure.lang.IFn
(invoke [this n]
(clojure.string/replace path ":id" (str n))))
(defmethod print-method Path [o ^java.io.Writer w]
(.write w (str "#path\"" (:path o) "\"")))
(set! *data-readers* (assoc *data-readers* 'path ->Path))
(comment
user=> (def p #path"/articles/:id/edit")
#'user/p
user=> p
#path"/articles/:id/edit"
user=> (p 1)
"/articles/1/edit"
user=>
)
edit-url will either have the value of an immutable string or function. Not both.
The problem will fade when you write a function with better abstraction that takes a string and a map of keywords to replace with words. It should work like this
(generate-url "/articles/:id/edit" {:id 1})
Clojure is a "Lisp 1" which means that is has a single namespace for all symbols, including both data scalars and functions. What you have written shows the functionally of both a string and a function but for a single name, which you can do in Common Lisp but not Clojure (not that a "Lisp 2" has its own inconveniences as well).
In general this type of "problem" is a non issue if you organize your vars better. Why not just make edit-url a function with variable arity? Without arguments it returns something, with arguments it returns something else. Really the possibilities are endless, even more so when you consider making a macro instead of a function (not that I'm advocating that).
I saw a Clojure function like
(defn strFun
[#^String str]
(...))
I guess the #^String is type hint but what is the #and ^ before the String?
It's the old format for specifying simple metadata tags before it was just ^TagName. You will see it in code written during this transition from time to time, though there is no need to use it.
user> #^String ["hello"]
["hello"]
user> (meta #^String ["hello"])
{:tag java.lang.String}
is the same as not using the #
user> (meta ^String ["hello"])
{:tag java.lang.String}
user>
PS: in this example I tagged a vector with the tag java.lang.String. This point to note is that the symbol you use as a tag will be resolved and the value that symbol resolves to will be used as the tag. So you can't use an undefined symbol.
I have the following line in my code:
(spit path (prn-str job-data))
It does it's work well execpt for one thing, every item in the list are put between double-quotes...
( ":a" ":b" ":a" )
the expected result that I'd like to have
( :a :b :a )
How to get the expected result?
Thanks in advance!
What's happening
The issue isn't that the items are being put in double quotes per se but that they're strings (as opposed to the keywords you're expecting).
prn-str, which is ultimately based on pr, prints objects "in a way that objects can be read by the reader". This means strings are printed in double-quotes - otherwise the reader wouldn't be able to tell strings from symbols, or read strings with whitespace in them. See here for more information on Clojure's reader.
println and print, on the other hand, are intended to "produce output for human consumption" and do not put strings in double-quotes. This is why you're seeing the difference in output between prn-str and println.
You can verify this with class. If you try (-> job-data first class) the answer will be either java.lang.String or clojure.lang.Keyword.
Here are some examples demonstrating the different behaviors of the printing functions when used with keywords and strings:
(def str-job-data '(":a" ":b" ":c"))
(def key-job-data '(:a :b :c))
;; `println` prints both keywords and strings without quotes
(with-out-str (println str-job-data)) ;=> "(:a :b :c)\n"
(with-out-str (println key-job-data)) ;=> "(:a :b :c)\n"
;; `prn-str` prints the strings in quotes but the keywords without quotes
(prn-str str-job-data) ;=> "(\":a\" \":b\" \":c\")\n"
(prn-str key-job-data) ;=> "(:a :b :c)\n"
How to change it
Now for possible solutions. If you were expecting job-data to contain keywords then the right fix is most likely to modify job-data. However, I can't offer much guidance here without knowing more about how job-data is produced.
If for some reason you can't modify job-data (for instance, if it's produced by code you don't control) and you want to write keywords wherever it contains keyword-like strings then something like #maxthoursie's suggestion is probably your best bet. (You could hypothetically just switch to print or println but that could have undesirable effects on how other objects are printed).
(defn keyword-string->keyword [s]
(keyword (subs s 1)))
(spit path (prn-str (map keyword-string->keyword job-data)))
If job-data might contain objects other than keyword-like strings you could apply the function only when appropriate.
(defn convert-job-data [obj]
(if (and (string? obj)
(= (.charAt obj 0) \:))
(keyword-string->keyword obj)
obj))
(spit path (prn-str (map convert-job-data job-data)))
Of course, if the file you're writing is for human consumption anyway and all this business about the reader is irrelevant you could trivially make your own println-str:
(defn println-str [& more]
(with-out-str (apply println more)))
(spit path (println-str job-data))
I'm guessing job-data is not what you expect it to be.
user=> (prn-str '(:a :b :c))
"(:a :b :c)\n"
If you do have a list with strings that looks like keywords, and you would like to convert it to keywords, you could use something like
(map (comp keyword #(subs % 1)) '(":a" ":b" ":c"))
Which skips the : of each element, and then converts it to a keyword.
user=> (prn-str (map (comp keyword #(subs % 1)) '(":a" ":b" ":c")))
"(:a :b :c)\n"
Given a list of names for variables, I want to set those variables to an expression.
I tried this:
(doall (for [x ["a" "b" "c"]] (def (symbol x) 666)))
...but this yields the error
java.lang.Exception: First argument to def must be a Symbol
Can anyone show me the right way to accomplish this, please?
Clojure's "intern" function is for this purpose:
(doseq [x ["a" "b" "c"]]
(intern *ns* (symbol x) 666))
(doall (for [x ["a" "b" "c"]] (eval `(def ~(symbol x) 666))))
In response to your comment:
There are no macros involved here. eval is a function that takes a list and returns the result of executing that list as code. ` and ~ are shortcuts to create a partially-quoted list.
` means the contents of the following lists shall be quoted unless preceded by a ~
~ the following list is a function call that shall be executed, not quoted.
So ``(def ~(symbol x) 666)is the list containing the symboldef, followed by the result of executingsymbol xfollowed by the number of the beast. I could as well have written(eval (list 'def (symbol x) 666))` to achieve the same effect.
Updated to take Stuart Sierra's comment (mentioning clojure.core/intern) into account.
Using eval here is fine, but it may be interesting to know that it is not necessary, regardless of whether the Vars are known to exist already. In fact, if they are known to exist, then I think the alter-var-root solution below is cleaner; if they might not exist, then I wouldn't insist on my alternative proposition being much cleaner, but it seems to make for the shortest code (if we disregard the overhead of three lines for a function definition), so I'll just post it for your consideration.
If the Var is known to exist:
(alter-var-root (resolve (symbol "foo")) (constantly new-value))
So you could do
(dorun
(map #(-> %1 symbol resolve (alter-var-root %2))
["x" "y" "z"]
[value-for-x value-for-y value-for z]))
(If the same value was to be used for all Vars, you could use (repeat value) for the final argument to map or just put it in the anonymous function.)
If the Vars might need to be created, then you can actually write a function to do this (once again, I wouldn't necessarily claim this to be cleaner than eval, but anyway -- just for the interest of it):
(defn create-var
;; I used clojure.lang.Var/intern in the original answer,
;; but as Stuart Sierra has pointed out in a comment,
;; a Clojure built-in is available to accomplish the same
;; thing
([sym] (intern *ns* sym))
([sym val] (intern *ns* sym val)))
Note that if a Var turns out to have already been interned with the given name in the given namespace, then this changes nothing in the single argument case or just resets the Var to the given new value in the two argument case. With this, you can solve the original problem like so:
(dorun (map #(create-var (symbol %) 666) ["x" "y" "z"]))
Some additional examples:
user> (create-var 'bar (fn [_] :bar))
#'user/bar
user> (bar :foo)
:bar
user> (create-var 'baz)
#'user/baz
user> baz
; Evaluation aborted. ; java.lang.IllegalStateException:
; Var user/baz is unbound.
; It does exist, though!
;; if you really wanted to do things like this, you'd
;; actually use the clojure.contrib.with-ns/with-ns macro
user> (binding [*ns* (the-ns 'quux)]
(create-var 'foobar 5))
#'quux/foobar
user> quux/foobar
5
Evaluation rules for normal function calls are to evaluate all the items of the list, and call the first item in the list as a function with the rest of the items in the list as parameters.
But you can't make any assumptions about the evaluation rules for special forms or macros. A special form or the code produced by a macro call could evaluate all the arguments, or never evaluate them, or evaluate them multiple times, or evaluate some arguments and not others. def is a special form, and it doesn't evaluate its first argument. If it did, it couldn't work. Evaluating the foo in (def foo 123) would result in a "no such var 'foo'" error most of the time (if foo was already defined, you probably wouldn't be defining it yourself).
I'm not sure what you're using this for, but it doesn't seem very idiomatic. Using def anywhere but at the toplevel of your program usually means you're doing something wrong.
(Note: doall + for = doseq.)