How to define a repeat function with macros - clojure

I want to write a function (rep-n-times n & args), which should work like:
user=>(rep-n-times 3 (print "hello!") (print "bye"))
hello! bye hello! bye hello! bye nil
My code is
(defmacro ntimes [n & body]
`(take ~n (repeat ~#body)))
Testing:
#'user/rep-n-times
user=> (rep-n-ntimes 5 (print "hah"))
hah(nil nil nil nil nil)
user=> (macroexpand '(rep-n-ntimes 4 (print "hello")))
(clojure.core/take 4 (clojure.core/repeat (print "hello")))
How can I fix it?

In this case where you are doing things for side effects, you should use doseq or dotimes instead:
(dotimes [i 3]
(print "hello! bye "))
There is no need to define rep-n-times. If you need the results of a function with side-effects, use repeatedly. Note also that repeatedly and repeat optionally takes the number of repetitions as an argument.
(repeatedly 3 (fn [] (print "hello! bye ") (rand-int 10)))
However as to the problem with your definition of rep-n-times, calling repeat takes a single argument, which is the evaluated result of (print "hello") which is nil. So you are asking for 4 nils, and getting 4 nils. The print occurs one time, when the argument is evaluated to nil. Also it produces a lazy sequence, which happens to be evaluated at the REPL, but that is just because it is being printed. You should avoid having side effects (such as printing) inside a lazy sequence, because they will not be evaluated unless you explicitly realize the sequence.
Note that dotimes can take many forms:
(dotimes [i 3] (print "h1") (print "h2") (print "h3"))
And that dotimes is a macro defined here
You can write your own version by using that code as a starting point:
(defmacro rep-n-times [n & body]
`(loop [i# ~n]
(when (pos? i#)
~#body
(recur (dec i#)))))

Related

How to really shuffle sequence in Clojure?

(defn shuffle-letters
[word]
(let [letters (clojure.string/split word #"")
shuffled-letters (shuffle letters)]
(clojure.string/join "" shuffled-letters)))
But if you put in "test" you can get "test" back sometimes.
How to modify the code to be sure that output will never be equal to input.
I feel embarrassing, I can solve it easily in Python, but Clojure is so different to me...
Thank you.
P.S. I thing we can close the topic now... The loop is in fact all I needed...
You can use loop. When the shuffled letters are the same as the original, recur back up to the start of the loop:
(defn shuffle-letters [word]
(let [letters (clojure.string/split word #"")]
(loop [] ; Start a loop
(let [shuffled-letters (shuffle letters)]
(if (= shuffled-letters letters) ; Check if they're equal
(recur) ; If they're equal, loop and try again
(clojure.string/join "" shuffled-letters)))))) ; Else, return the joined letters
There's many ways this could be written, but this is I think as plain as it gets. You could also get rid of the loop and make shuffle-letters itself recursive. This would lead to unnecessary work though. You could also use let-fn to create a local recursive function, but at that point, loop would likely be cleaner.
Things to note though:
Obviously, if you try to shuffle something like "H" or "HH", it will get stuck and loop forever since no amount of shuffling will cause them to differ. You could do a check ahead of time, or add a parameter to loop that limits how many times it tries.
This will actually make your shuffle less random. If you disallow it from returning the original string, you're reducing the amount of possible outputs.
The call to split is unnecessary. You can just call vec on the string:
(defn shuffle-letters [word]
(let [letters (vec word)]
(loop []
(let [shuffled-letters (shuffle letters)]
(if (= shuffled-letters letters)
(recur)
(clojure.string/join "" shuffled-letters))))))
Here's another solution (using transducers):
(defn shuffle-strict [s]
(let [letters (seq s)
xform (comp (map clojure.string/join)
(filter (fn[v] (not= v s))))]
(when (> (count (into #{} letters)) 1)
(first (eduction xform (iterate shuffle letters))))))
(for [_ (range 20)]
(shuffle-strict "test"))
;; => ("etts" "etts" "stte" "etts" "sett" "tste" "tste" "sett" "ttse" "sett" "ttse" "tset" "stte" "ttes" "ttes" "stte" "stte" "etts" "estt" "stet")
(shuffle-strict "t")
;; => nil
(shuffle-strict "ttttt")
;; => nil
We basically create a lazy list of possible shuffles, and then we take the first of them to be different from the input. We also make sure that there are at least 2 different characters in the input, so as not to hang (we return nil here since you don't want to have the input string as a possible result).
If you want your function to return a sequence:
(defn my-shuffle [input]
(when (-> input set count (> 1))
(->> input
(iterate #(apply str (shuffle (seq %))))
(remove #(= input %)))))
(->> "abc" my-shuffle (take 5))
;; => ("acb" "cba" "bca" "acb" "cab")
(->> "bbb" my-shuffle (take 5))
;; => ()

How to end dotimes clojure

I am trying to make a guess the number game in clojure but I keep getting an error saying I can only recur from tail position
(def n (rand-int 100))
(prn n)
(println "You have 10 guesses :D")
(println "HINT: My number is between 1 and 100")
(dotimes [i 10]
(def guess (read-line))
(if (= guess str(n))
(recur (println "Correct!") (println "Incorrect"))))
(I am new to clojure)
dotimes is used to execute the body for sideeffects that exact amount given; there is no means to break - except throwing
loop (or functions) are recur targets. Next you would have to count down the attempts so you can stop, if the user did not guess it:
(loop [attempts 10]
; ...
(recur (dec attempts)))
There are also other problematic things:
Don't def inside other forms. Use let instead.
str(n) will throw, as it will try to call n (ClassCastException java.lang.Long cannot be cast to clojure.lang.IFn)
recuring with println looks fishy, since println returns always nil
How do you end dotimes? You don't. Try using loop instead. There are a lot of issues with your code but that's a start.
though this is discouraged and counterclojurish to even think of short circuiting the execution this way, it is still totally possible with macros (purely for education and fun)
(defmacro return [& x]
`(list '~'return (do ~#x)))
(defmacro dotimes+ [[i n] & body]
`(loop [~i 0 res# nil]
(cond (and (list? res#) (= '~'return (first res#))) (second res#)
(< ~i ~n) (recur (inc ~i) (do ~#body))
:else res#)))
can be used like this:
user> (dotimes+ [i 10]
(println i)
(if (== i 5) (return :short-circuited)))
;; 0
;; 1
;; 2
;; 3
;; 4
;; 5
:short-circuited
user> (dotimes+ [i 10]
(println i)
(if (== i 5) (return)))
;; 0
;; 1
;; 2
;; 3
;; 4
;; 5
nil
user> (dotimes+ [i 10]
(println i))
;; 0
;; 1
;; 2
;; 3
;; 4
;; 5
;; 6
;; 7
;; 8
;; 9
nil
notice, that it still expects the return macro to be called in tail position (similar to recur in loop macro)
(dotimes+ [x 4]
(println "attempt" (inc x))
(let [answer (read-line)]
(println "answer is:" answer)
(if (= answer "yes")
(return "YEAH!!!")
(println "WRONG!"))))

How to write clojure conditional statements

How can one translate the following code
while ((readInteger = fileInputStream.read()) != -1) {
.....
}
in clojure ? I need the value of readInteger in further parts of the code but also the '!= -1' needs to take place inside the while conditional.
some general patterns for adapting things to the Clojure syntax
move the ( to the left of the function or opperator.
move opperators to the left of the things they work on and surround with ( )
so you could start like this:
(while (not= (.read fileInputStream) -1 ... and so on.
then, since you need to use the readInteger value later in the code let's talk about naming values and looping. If you just wanted to read a value once and give it a name you could do it like this:
(let [readInteger (.read fileInputStream)]
... your code here)
Since you want to do it in a loop, then let's use loop instead of let:
(loop [readInteger (.read fileInputStream)]
... your code here
(if (not= readInteger -1)
(recur (.read fileInputStream))))
or for (which is not the "for loop" from other languages)
(for [readInteger (repeatedly #(.read fileInputStream))
:while (not= readInteger -1)]
... do somethign with readInteger ...)
For generates sequences of results rather than just looping like it does in other languages.
Then the next step in clojuring is to think about how to split the reading the data from processing it. We can:
make a sequence of all the data
process each data
something like this:
(let [data (line-seq fileInputStream)]
(map #(Integer/parseInt %) data)
...)
There are functions in the standard library for converting a great many things into sequences, and a bunch of functions for doing a great many things with sequences.
Don't solve this problem with while, which requires you to do your test at the beginning of the loop. Instead, think about a recursive function, which can decide at any part of its body whether to make the recursive call or not. Any iterative loop can be converted into a tail-recursive function using loop/recur; here's an example of how to do it with your loop.
(loop []
(let [read-integer (.read file-input-stream)]
(when (not= read-integer -1)
(...)
(recur))))
Here are two similar examples like amalloy suggested:
(ns xyz...
(:require [clojure.java.io :as io] )
(:import [java.io StringReader] ))
(newline) (newline)
(let [reader-2 (io/reader (StringReader. "first")) ]
(loop []
(let [curr-char-int (.read reader-2)]
(when (not= -1 curr-char-int)
(print (char curr-char-int) " ")
(recur)))))
(newline) (newline)
(let [reader-2 (io/reader (StringReader. "second")) ]
(loop [curr-char-int (.read reader-2)]
(when (not= -1 curr-char-int)
(print (char curr-char-int) " ")
(recur (.read reader-2)))))
With result:
> lein run
f i r s t
s e c o n d
In the first case it takes an extra let statement, but doesn't duplicate the part (.read reader-2) like the 2nd case does.
Using threading macro:
(->> (repeatedly #(.read fs))
(take-while (partial not= -1))
(map str))
Replace (map str) with whatever function you want to operate
on the stream. For example, to calculate the sum:
(->> (repeatedly #(.read fs))
(take-while (partial not= -1))
(reduce +))

mapcat breaking the lazyness

I have a function that produces lazy-sequences called a-function.
If I run the code:
(map a-function a-sequence-of-values)
it returns a lazy sequence as expected.
But when I run the code:
(mapcat a-function a-sequence-of-values)
it breaks the lazyness of my function. In fact it turns that code into
(apply concat (map a-function a-sequence-of-values))
So it needs to realize all the values from the map before concatenating those values.
What I need is a function that concatenates the result of a map function on demand without realizing all the map beforehand.
I can hack a function for this:
(defn my-mapcat
[f coll]
(lazy-seq
(if (not-empty coll)
(concat
(f (first coll))
(my-mapcat f (rest coll))))))
But I can't believe that clojure doesn't have something already done. Do you know if clojure has such feature? Only a few people and I have the same problem?
I also found a blog that deals with the same issue: http://clojurian.blogspot.com.br/2012/11/beware-of-mapcat.html
Lazy-sequence production and consumption is different than lazy evaluation.
Clojure functions do strict/eager evaluation of their arguments. Evaluation of an argument that is or that yields a lazy sequence does not force realization of the yielded lazy sequence in and of itself. However, any side effects caused by evaluation of the argument will occur.
The ordinary use case for mapcat is to concatenate sequences yielded without side effects. Therefore, it hardly matters that some of the arguments are eagerly evaluated because no side effects are expected.
Your function my-mapcat imposes additional laziness on the evaluation of its arguments by wrapping them in thunks (other lazy-seqs). This can be useful when significant side effects - IO, significant memory consumption, state updates - are expected. However, the warning bells should probably be going off in your head if your function is doing side effects and producing a sequence to be concatenated that your code probably needs refactoring.
Here is similar from algo.monads
(defn- flatten*
"Like #(apply concat %), but fully lazy: it evaluates each sublist
only when it is needed."
[ss]
(lazy-seq
(when-let [s (seq ss)]
(concat (first s) (flatten* (rest s))))))
Another way to write my-mapcat:
(defn my-mapcat [f coll] (for [x coll, fx (f x)] fx))
Applying a function to a lazy sequence will force realization of a portion of that lazy sequence necessary to satisfy the arguments of the function. If that function itself produces lazy sequences as a result, those are not realized as a matter of course.
Consider this function to count the realized portion of a sequence
(defn count-realized [s]
(loop [s s, n 0]
(if (instance? clojure.lang.IPending s)
(if (and (realized? s) (seq s))
(recur (rest s) (inc n))
n)
(if (seq s)
(recur (rest s) (inc n))
n))))
Now let's see what's being realized
(let [seq-of-seqs (map range (list 1 2 3 4 5 6))
concat-seq (apply concat seq-of-seqs)]
(println "seq-of-seqs: " (count-realized seq-of-seqs))
(println "concat-seq: " (count-realized concat-seq))
(println "seqs-in-seq: " (mapv count-realized seq-of-seqs)))
;=> seq-of-seqs: 4
; concat-seq: 0
; seqs-in-seq: [0 0 0 0 0 0]
So, 4 elements of the seq-of-seqs got realized, but none of its component sequences were realized nor was there any realization in the concatenated sequence.
Why 4? Because the applicable arity overloaded version of concat takes 4 arguments [x y & xs] (count the &).
Compare to
(let [seq-of-seqs (map range (list 1 2 3 4 5 6))
foo-seq (apply (fn foo [& more] more) seq-of-seqs)]
(println "seq-of-seqs: " (count-realized seq-of-seqs))
(println "seqs-in-seq: " (mapv count-realized seq-of-seqs)))
;=> seq-of-seqs: 2
; seqs-in-seq: [0 0 0 0 0 0]
(let [seq-of-seqs (map range (list 1 2 3 4 5 6))
foo-seq (apply (fn foo [a b c & more] more) seq-of-seqs)]
(println "seq-of-seqs: " (count-realized seq-of-seqs))
(println "seqs-in-seq: " (mapv count-realized seq-of-seqs)))
;=> seq-of-seqs: 5
; seqs-in-seq: [0 0 0 0 0 0]
Clojure has two solutions to making the evaluation of arguments lazy.
One is macros. Unlike functions, macros do not evaluate their arguments.
Here's a function with a side effect
(defn f [n] (println "foo!") (repeat n n))
Side effects are produced even though the sequence is not realized
user=> (def x (concat (f 1) (f 2)))
foo!
foo!
#'user/x
user=> (count-realized x)
0
Clojure has a lazy-cat macro to prevent this
user=> (def y (lazy-cat (f 1) (f 2)))
#'user/y
user=> (count-realized y)
0
user=> (dorun y)
foo!
foo!
nil
user=> (count-realized y)
3
user=> y
(1 2 2)
Unfortunately, you cannot apply a macro.
The other solution to delay evaluation is wrap in thunks, which is exactly what you've done.
Your premise is wrong. Concat is lazy, apply is lazy if its first argument is, and mapcat is lazy.
user> (class (mapcat (fn [x y] (println x y) (list x y)) (range) (range)))
0 0
1 1
2 2
3 3
clojure.lang.LazySeq
note that some of the initial values are evaluated (more on this below), but clearly the whole thing is still lazy (or the call would never have returned, (range) returns an endless sequence, and will not return when used eagerly).
The blog you link to is about the danger of recursively using mapcat on a lazy tree, because it is eager on the first few elements (which can add up in a recursive application).

Building a lazy, impure id generator

I'd like to know how to create an infinite, impure sequence of unique values in Clojure.
(def generator ...) ; def, not defn
(take 4 generator) ; => (1 2 3 4)
(take 4 generator) ; => (5 6 7 8). note the generator's impurity.
I think that such a design could be more convenient than e.g. wrapping a single integer value into a reference type and increment it from its consumers, as:
The proposed approach reduces the implementation details to a single point of change: the generator. Otherwise all the consumers would have to care about both the reference type (atom), and the concrete function that provides the next value (inc)
Sequences can take advantage many clojure.core functions. 'Manually' building a list of ids out of an atom would be a bit bulky: (take 4 (repeatedly #(swap! _ inc)))
I couldn't come up with a working implementation. Is it possible at all?
You can wrap a lazy sequence around an impure class (like a java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicLong) to create an id sequence:
(def id-counter (java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicLong.))
(defn id-gen []
(cons
(.getAndIncrement id-counter)
(lazy-seq
(id-gen))))
This works, but only if you don't save the head of the sequence. If you create a var that captures the head:
(def id-seq (id-gen))
Then call it repeatedly, it will return ids from the beginning of the sequence, because you've held onto the head of the sequence:
(take 3 id-seq)
;; => (0 1 2)
(take 3 id-seq)
;; => (0 1 2)
(take 3 id-seq)
;; => (0 1 2)
If you re-create the sequence though, you'll get fresh values because of the impurity:
(take 3 (id-gen))
;; (3 4 5)
(take 3 (id-gen))
;; (6 7 8)
(take 3 (id-gen))
;; (9 10 11)
I only recommend doing the following for educational purposes (not production code), but you can create your own instance of ISeq which implements the impurity more directly:
(def custom-seq
(reify clojure.lang.ISeq
(first [this] (.getAndIncrement id-counter))
(next [this] (.getAndIncrement id-counter))
(cons [this thing]
(cons thing this))
(more [this] (cons
(.getAndIncrement id-counter)
this))
(count [this] (throw (RuntimeException. "count: not supported")))
(empty [this] (throw (RuntimeException. "empty: not supported")))
(equiv [this obj] (throw (RuntimeException. "equiv: not supported")))
(seq [this] this)))
(take 3 custom-seq)
;; (12 13 14)
(take 3 custom-seq)
;; (15 16 17)
I had a fun time discovering something during answering your question. The first thing that occured to me was that perhaps, for whatever ultimate goal you need these IDs for, the gensym function might be helpful.
Then, I thought "well hey, that seems to increment some impure counter to generate new IDs" and "well hey, what's in the source code for that?" Which led me to this:
(. clojure.lang.RT (nextID))
Which seems to do what you need. Cool! If you want to use it the way you suggest, then I would probably make it a function:
(defn generate-id []
(. clojure.lang.RT (nextID)))
Then you can do:
user> (repeatedly 5 generate-id)
=> (372 373 374 375 376)
I haven't yet tested whether this will produce always unique values "globally"--I'm not sure about terminology, but I'm talking about when you might be using this generate-id function from within different threads, but want to still be sure that it's producing unique values.
this is another solution, maybe:
user=> (defn positive-numbers
([] (positive-numbers 1))
([n] (cons n (lazy-seq (positive-numbers (inc n))))))
#'user/positive-numbers
user=> (take 4 (positive-numbers))
(1 2 3 4)
user=> (take 4 (positive-numbers 5))
(5 6 7 8)
A way that would be more idiomatic, thread-safe, and invites no weirdness over head references would be to use a closure over one of clojures built in mutable references. Here is a quick sample I worked up since I was having the same issue. It simply closes over a ref.
(def id-generator (let [counter (ref 0)]
(fn [] (dosync (let [cur-val #counter]
(do (alter counter + 1)
cur-val))))))
Every time you call (id-generator) you will get the next number in the sequence.
Here's another quick way:
user> (defn make-generator [& [ii init]]
(let [a (atom (or ii 0 ))
f #(swap! a inc)]
#(repeatedly f)))
#'user/make-generator
user> (def g (make-generator))
#'user/g
user> (take 3 (g))
(1 2 3)
user> (take 3 (g))
(4 5 6)
user> (take 3 (g))
(7 8 9)
This is hack but it works and it is extremely simple
; there be dragons !
(defn id-gen [n] (repeatedly n (fn [] (hash #()))))
(id-gen 3) ; (2133991908 877609209 1060288067 442239263 274390974)
Basically clojure creates an 'anonymous' function but since clojure itselfs needs a name for that, it uses uniques impure ids to avoid collitions. If you hash a unique name then you should get a unique number.
Hope it helps
Creating identifiers from an arbitrary collection of seed identifiers:
(defonce ^:private counter (volatile! 0))
(defn- next-int []
(vswap! counter inc))
(defn- char-range
[a b]
(mapv char
(range (int a) (int b))))
(defn- unique-id-gen
"Generates a sequence of unique identifiers seeded with ids sequence"
[ids]
;; Laziness ftw:
(apply concat
(iterate (fn [xs]
(for [x xs
y ids]
(str x y)))
(map str ids))))
(def inf-ids-seq (unique-id-gen (concat (char-range \a \z)
(char-range \A \Z)
(char-range \0 \9)
[\_ \-])))
(defn- new-class
"Returns an unused new classname"
[]
(nth inf-ids-seq (next-int)))
(repeatedly 10 new-class)
Demonstration:
(take 16 (unique-id-gen [\a 8 \c]))
;; => ("a" "8" "c" "aa" "a8" "ac" "8a" "88" "8c" "ca" "c8" "cc" "aaa" "aa8" "aac" "a8a")