Can reagent components have more than one top level HTML entities? - clojure

I seen plenty of code like this:
(defn simple-component []
[:div
[:p "I am a component!"]
[:p "This component has two paragraphs"]])
Is there a way to make that component have just two p elements, without the enclosing div?

it seems "rookie mistake".
please check this wiki page: Form-1: A Simple Function
https://github.com/Day8/re-frame/wiki/Creating-Reagent-Components

You can do that with a react fragment which can created in two ways:
With a js array (which takes react elements):
(defn simple-component []
#js [(r/as-element [:p "I am a component!"])
(r/as-element [:p "This component has two paragraphs"])])
With the [:<> ... ] tag (which takes hiccup forms):
(defn simple-component []
[:<>
[:p "I am a component!"]
[:p "This component has two paragraphs"]])
Implemented in this PR

Related

What is the correct way to dynamically render components in reagent?

Dynamically rendering components in React is fundamental to its use. It's very easy to do as can be seen here:
render() {
return (
<div className="blocks_loop">
{this.props.blocks.map(block => (
<div className="block" />
))}
</div>
)
}
In this example you will get as many divs rendered as there are blocks. I am trying to achieve the same thing with reagent, part of which I've documented in this post. There are examples out there of people doing it like this one, but they all seem to include the use of lists which I don't want to use - it just doesn't suit my purpose. I just want as many components out as items I put in.
Update
I now have this code trying to follow the answer below which is meant to render 3 divs for every key value pair in my-map. Nothing is rendered and it throws the error react-dom.development.js:507 Warning: Functions are not valid as a React child.:
(ns mapping-test.views
(:require
[re-frame.core :as re-frame]
[mapping-test.subs :as subs]))
(defn main-panel []
(def my-map {:a 1 :b 2 :c 3})
(defn a-component []
[:h1 "This is a component rendering"])
(defn my-loop [my-map]
(for [value my-map]
[a-component]))
(fn []
[my-loop my-map]))
(defn my-component [blocks]
[:div.blocks_loop
(for [b blocks]
[:div.block])])
Since you are creating hiccup, you can just use any clojure code to map or loop through your data.

Using the hickory library, is it possible to use selectors in combination with zippers?

I'm new to Clojure, and hickory, and the idea of zippers.
What I want to do is, I want to use selectors to go to one location in an HTML document. And then, I want to be able to navigate from that location, up to a parent element, and then get 2nd sibling from that point.
Is this possible to do with hickory? From what I understand, it seems as though I only have the option of using selectors, or navigating the HTML in a zipper structure, but I can't figure out how to do both, or if that's even possible.
You could do something like this:
(:require
[hickory.select :as s]
[hickory.convert :as convert]
[clojure.zip :as z]
...
(let [html (convert/hiccup-to-hickory (list [:div
[:div {:class "didya"} "nevertheless"]]
[:div "possible"]
[:div "geometric"]))]
(-> (s/select-locs (s/class "didya") html)
(first)
(z/up)
(z/right)
(z/right)
(z/node)))
The forest library can do this easily. There is
a video from the last Clojure Conj
many examples also
docs are ongoing.

How do I loop through a subscribed collection in re-frame and display the data as a list-item?

Consider the following clojurescript code where the specter, reagent and re-frame frameworks are used, an external React.js grid component is used as a view component.
In db.cls :
(def default-db
{:cats [{:id 0 :data {:text "ROOT" :test 17} :prev nil :par nil}
{:id 1 :data {:text "Objects" :test 27} :prev nil :par 0}
{:id 2 :data {:text "Version" :test 37} :prev nil :par 1}
{:id 3 :data {:text "X1" :test 47} :prev nil :par 2}]})
In subs.cls
(register-sub
:cats
(fn [db]
(reaction
(select [ALL :data] (t/tree-visitor (get #db :cats))))))
result from select:
[{:text "ROOT", :test 17}
{:text "Objects", :test 27}
{:text "Version", :test 37}
{:text "X1", :test 47}]
In views.cls
(defn categorymanager []
(let [cats (re-frame/subscribe [:cats])]
[:> Reactable.Table
{:data (clj->js #cats)}]))
The code above works as expected.
Instead of displaying the data with the react.js component I want to go through each of the maps in the :cats vector and display the :text items in html ul / li.
I started as follows:
(defn categorymanager2 []
(let [cats (re-frame/subscribe [:cats])]
[:div
[:ul
(for [category #cats]
;;--- How to continue here ?? ---
)
))
Expected output:
ROOT
Objects
Version
X1
How do I loop through a subscribed collection in re-frame and display the data as a list-item? ( = question for title ).
First, be clear why you use key...
Supplying a key for each item in a list is useful when that list is quite dynamic - when new list items are being regularly added and removed, especially if that list is long, and the items are being added/removed near the top of the list.
keys can deliver big performance gains, because they allow React to more efficiently redraw these changeable lists. Or, more accurately, it allows React to avoid redrawing items which have the same key as last time, and which haven't changed, and which have simply shuffled up or down.
Second, be clear what you should do if the list is quite static (it does not change all the time) OR if there is no unique value associated with each item...
Don't use :key at all. Instead, use into like this:
(defn categorymanager []
(let [cats (re-frame/subscribe [:cats])]
(fn []
[:div
(into [:ul] (map #(vector :li (:text %)) #cats))])))
Notice what has happened here. The list provided by the map is folded into the [:ul] vector. At the end of it, no list in sight. Just nested vectors.
You only get warnings about missing keys when you embed a list into hiccup. Above there is no embedded list, just vectors.
Third, if your list really is dynamic...
Add a unique key to each item (unique amoung siblings). In the example given, the :text itself is a good enough key (I assume it is unique):
(defn categorymanager []
(let [cats (re-frame/subscribe [:cats])]
(fn []
[:div
[:ul (map #(vector :li {:key (:text %)} (:text %)) #cats)]])))
That map will result in a list which is the 1st parameter to the [:ul]. When Reagent/React sees that list it will want to see keys on each item (remember lists are different to vectors in Reagent hiccup) and will print warnings to console were keys to be missing.
So we need to add a key to each item of the list. In the code above we aren't adding :key via metadata (although you can do it that way if you want), and instead we are supplying the key via the 1st parameter (of the [:li]), which normally also carries style data.
Finally - part 1 DO NOT use map-indexed as is suggested in another answer.
key should be a unique value associated with each item. Attaching some arb integer does nothing useful - well, it does get rid of the warnings in the console, but you should use the into technique above if that's all you want.
Finally - part 2 there is no difference between map and for in this context.
They both result in a list. If that list has keys then no warning. But if keys are missing, then lots of warnings. But how the list was created doesn't come into it.
So, this for version is pretty much the same as the map version. Some may prefer it:
(defn categorymanager []
(let [cats (re-frame/subscribe [:cats])]
(fn []
[:div
[:ul (for [i #cats] [:li {:key (:text i)} (:text i)])]])))
Which can also be written using metadata like this:
(defn categorymanager []
(let [cats (re-frame/subscribe [:cats])]
(fn []
[:div
[:ul (for [i #cats] ^{:key (:text i)}[:li (:text i)])]])))
Finally - part 3
mapv is a problem because of this issue:
https://github.com/Day8/re-frame/wiki/Using-%5Bsquare-brackets%5D-instead-of-%28parentheses%29#appendix-2
Edit: For a much more coherent and technically correct explanation of keys and map, see Mike Thompson's answer!
Here's how I would write it:
(defn categorymanager2 []
(let [cats (re-frame/subscribe [:cats])]
(fn []
[:div
[:ul
(map-indexed (fn [n cat] ;;; !!! See https://stackoverflow.com/a/37186230/500207 !!!
^{:key n}
[:li (:text cat)])
#cats)]])))
(defn main-panel []
[:div
[categorymanager2]])
A few points:
See the re-frame readme's Subscribe section, near the end, which says:
subscriptions can only be used in Form-2 components and the subscription must be in the outer setup function and not in the inner render function. So the following is wrong (compare to the correct version above)…
Therefore, your component was ‘wrong’ because it didn't wrap the renderer inside an inner function. The readme has all the details, but in short, not wrapping a component renderer that depends on a subscription inside an inner function is bad because this causes the component to rerender whenever db changes—not what you want! You want the component to only rerender when the subscription changes.
Edit: seriously, see Mike Thompson's answer. For whatever reason, I prefer using map to create a seq of Hiccup tags. You could use a for loop also, but the critical point is that each [:li] Hiccup vector needs a :key entry in its meta-data, which I add here by using the current category's index in the #cats vector. If you don't have a :key, React will complain in the Dev Console. Note that this key should somehow uniquely tie this element of #cats to this tag: if the cats subscription changes and gets shuffled around, the result might not be what you expect because I just used this very simple key. If you can guarantee that category names will be unique, you can just use the :test value, or the :test value, or something else. The point is, the key must be unique and must uniquely identify this element.
(N.B.: don't try and use mapv to make a vector of Hiccup tags—re-frame hates that. Must be a seq like what map produces.)
I also included an example main-panel to emphasize that
parent components don't need the subscriptions that their children component need, and that
you should call categorymanager2 component with square-brackets instead of as a function with parens (see Using [] instead of ()).
Here's an ul / li example:
(defn phone-component
[phone]
[:li
[:span (:name #phone)]
[:p (:snippet #phone)]])
(defn phones-component
[]
(let [phones (re-frame/subscribe [:phones])] ; subscribe to the phones value in our db
(fn []
[:ul (for [phone in #phones] ^{:key phone} [phone-component phone] #phones)])))
I grabbed that code from this reframe tutorial.
Also map is preferable to for when using Reagent. There is a technical reason for this, it is just that I don't know what it is.

Why are multi-methods not working as functions for Reagent/Re-frame?

In a small app I'm building that uses Reagent and Re-frame I'm using multi-methods to dispatch which page should be shown based on a value in the app state:
(defmulti pages :name)
(defn main-panel []
(let [current-route (re-frame/subscribe [:current-route])]
(fn []
;...
(pages #current-route))))
and then I have methods such as:
(defmethod layout/pages :register [_] [register-page])
where the register-page function would generate the actual view:
(defn register-page []
(let [registration-form (re-frame/subscribe [:registration-form])]
(fn []
[:div
[:h1 "Register"]
;...
])))
I tried changing my app so that the methods generated the pages directly, as in:
(defmethod layout/pages :register [_]
(let [registration-form (re-frame/subscribe [:registration-form])]
(fn []
[:div
[:h1 "Register"]
;...
])))
and that caused no page to ever be rendered. In my main panel I changed the call to pages to square brackets so that Reagent would have visibility into it:
(defn main-panel []
(let [current-route (re-frame/subscribe [:current-route])]
(fn []
;...
[pages #current-route])))
and that caused the first visited page to work, but after that, clicking on links (which causes current-route to change) has no effect.
All the namespaces defining the individual methods are required in the file that is loaded first, that contains the init function, and the fact that I can pick any single page and have it displayed proves the code is loading (then, switching to another page doesn't work):
https://github.com/carouselapps/ninjatools/blob/master/src/cljs/ninjatools/core.cljs#L8-L12
In an effort to debug what's going on, I defined two routes, :about and :about2, one as a function and one as a method:
(defn about-page []
(fn []
[:div "This is the About Page."]))
(defmethod layout/pages :about [_]
[about-page])
(defmethod layout/pages :about2 [_]
(fn []
[:div "This is the About 2 Page."]))
and made the layout print the result of calling pages (had to use the explicit call instead of the square brackets of course). The wrapped function, the one that works, returns:
[#object[ninjatools$pages$about_page "function ninjatools$pages$about_page(){
return (function (){
return new cljs.core.PersistentVector(null, 2, 5, cljs.core.PersistentVector.EMPTY_NODE, [new cljs.core.Keyword(null,"div","div",1057191632),"This is the About Page."], null);
});
}"]]
while the method returns:
#object[Function "function (){
return new cljs.core.PersistentVector(null, 2, 5, cljs.core.PersistentVector.EMPTY_NODE, [new cljs.core.Keyword(null,"div","div",1057191632),"This is the About 2 Page."], null);
}"]
If I change the method to be:
(defmethod layout/pages :about2 [_]
[(fn []
[:div "This is the About 2 Page."])])
that is, returning the function in a vector, then, it starts to work. And if I make the reverse change to the wrapped function, it starts to fail in the same manner as the method:
(defn about-page []
(fn []
[:div "This is the About Page."]))
(defmethod layout/pages :about [_]
about-page)
Makes a bit of sense as Reagent's syntax is [function] but it was supposed to call the function automatically.
I also started outputting #current-route to the browser, as in:
[:main.container
[alerts/view]
[pages #current-route]
[:div (pr-str #current-route)]]
and I verified #current-route is being modified correctly and the output updated, just not [pages #current-route].
The full source code for my app can be found here: https://github.com/carouselapps/ninjatools/tree/multi-methods
Update: corrected the arity of the methods following Michał Marczyk's answer.
So, a component like this: [pages #some-ratom]
will rerender when pages changes or #some-ratom changes.
From reagent's point of view, pages hasn't changed since last time, it is still the same multi-method it was before. But #some-ratom might change, so that could trigger a rerender.
But when this rerender happens it will be done using a cached version of pages. After all, it does not appear to reagent that pages has changed. It is still the same multimethod it was before.
The cached version of pages will, of course, be the first version of pages which was rendered - the first version of the mutlimethod and not the new version we expect to see used.
Reagent does this caching because it must handle Form-2 functions. It has to keep the returned render function.
Bottom line: because of the caching, multimethods won't work very well, unless you find a way to completely blow up the component and start again, which is what the currently-top-voted approach does:
^{:key #current-route} [pages #current-route]
Of course, blowing up the component and starting again might have its own unwelcome implications (depending on what local state is held in that component).
Vaguely Related Background:
https://github.com/Day8/re-frame/wiki/Creating-Reagent-Components#appendix-a---lifting-the-lid-slightly
https://github.com/Day8/re-frame/wiki/When-do-components-update%3F
I don't have all the details, but apparently, when I was rendering pages like this:
[:main.container
[alerts/view]
[pages #current-route]]
Reagent was failing to notice that pages depended on the value of #current-route. The Chrome React plugin helped me figure it out. I tried using a ratom instead of a subscription and that seemed to work fine. Thankfully, telling Reagent/React the key to an element is easy enough:
[:main.container
[alerts/view]
^{:key #current-route} [pages #current-route]]
That works just fine.
The first problem that jumps out at me is that your methods take no arguments:
(defmethod layout/pages :register [] [register-page])
^ arglist
Here you have an empty arglist, but presumably you'll be calling this multimethod with one or two arguments (since its dispatch function is a keyword and keywords can be called with one or two arguments).
If you want to call this multimethod with a single argument and just ignore it inside the body of the :register method, change the above to
(defmethod layout/pages :register [_] [register-page])
^ argument to be ignored
Also, I expect you'll probably want to call pages yourself like you previously did (that is, revert the change to square brackets that you mentioned in the question).
This may or may not fix the app – there may be other problems – but it should get you started. (The multimethod will definitely not work with those empty arglists if you pass in any arguments.)
How about if you instead have a wrapper pages-component function which is a regular function that can be cached by reagent. It would look like this:
(defn pages-component [state]
(layout/pages #state))

Trouble with building up a string in Clojure

[this may seem like my problem is with Compojure, but it isn't - it's with Clojure]
I've been pulling my hair out on this seemingly simple issue - but am getting nowhere.
I am playing with Compojure (a light web framework for Clojure) and I would just like to generate a web page showing showing my list of todos that are in a PostgreSQL database.
The code snippets are below (left out the database connection, query, etc - but that part isn't needed because specific issue is that the resulting HTML shows nothing between the <body> and </body> tags).
As a test, I tried hard-coding the string in the call to main-layout, like this:
(html (main-layout "Aki's Todos" "Haircut<br>Study Clojure<br>Answer a question on Stackoverfolw")) - and it works fine.
So the real issue is that I do not believe I know how to build up a string in Clojure. Not the idiomatic way, and not by calling out to Java's StringBuilder either - as I have attempted to do in the code below.
A virtual beer, and a big upvote to whoever can solve it! Many thanks!
=============================================================
;The master template (a very simple POC for now, but can expand on it later)
(defn main-layout
"This is one of the html layouts for the pages assets - just like a master page"
[title body]
(html
[:html
[:head
[:title title]
(include-js "todos.js")
(include-css "todos.css")]
[:body body]]))
(defn show-all-todos
"This function will generate the todos HTML table and call the layout function"
[]
(let [rs (select-all-todos)
sbHTML (new StringBuilder)]
(for [rec rs]
(.append sbHTML (str rec "<br><br>")))
(html (main-layout "Aki's Todos" (.toString sbHTML)))))
=============================================================
Again, the result is a web page but with nothing between the body tags. If I replace the code in the for loop with println statements, and direct the code to the repl - forgetting about the web page stuff (ie. the call to main-layout), the resultset gets printed - BUT - the issue is with building up the string.
Thanks again.
~Aki
for is lazy, and in your function it's never being evaluated. Change for to doseq.
user> (let [rs ["foo" "bar"]
sbHTML (new StringBuilder)]
(for [rec rs]
(.append sbHTML (str rec "<br><br>")))
(.toString sbHTML))
""
user> (let [rs ["foo" "bar"]
sbHTML (new StringBuilder)]
(doseq [rec rs]
(.append sbHTML (str rec "<br><br>")))
(.toString sbHTML))
"foo<br><br>bar<br><br>"
You could also use reduce and interpose, or clojure.string/join from clojure.string, or probably some other options.
user> (let [rs ["foo" "bar"]]
(reduce str (interpose "<br><br>" rs)))
"foo<br><br>bar"
user> (require 'clojure.string)
nil
user> (let [rs ["foo" "bar"]]
(clojure.string/join "<br><br>" rs))
"foo<br><br>bar"
You would like to use the re-gsub like this:
(require 'clojure.contrib.str-utils) ;;put in head for enabling us to use re-gsub later on
(clojure.contrib.str-utils/re-gsub #"\newline" "<br><br>" your-string-with-todos-separated-with-newlines)
This last line will result in the string you like. The require-part is, as you maybe already know, there to enable the compiler to reach the powerful clojure.contrib.str-utils library without importing it to your current namespace (which could potentially lead to unnescessary collisions when the program grows).
re- is for reg-exp, and lets you define a reg-exp of the form #"regexp", which to replace all instances that is hit by the regexp with the argument afterwards, applied to the third argument. The \newline is in this case clojures way of expressing newlines in regexps as well as strings and the character we are looking for.
What I think you really wanted to do is to make a nifty ordered or unordered list in html-format. These can be done with [hiccup-page-helpers][2] (if you don't have them you probably have a compojure from the time before it got splited up in compojure, hiccup and more, since you use the html-function).
If you want to use hiccup-page-helpers, use the command re-split from the clojure.contrib.str-utils mentioned above in this fashion:
(use 'hiccup.page-helpers) ;;watch out for namespace collisions, since all the functions in hiccup.page-helpers got into your current namespace.
(unordered-list (clojure.contrib.str-utils/re-split #"\newline" your-string-with-todos-separated-with-newlines))
which should render a neat
<ul>
<li>todo-item1</li>
<li>todo-item2</li>
</ul>
(and yes, there is an ordered-list command that works the same way!)
In the last line of clojure code above, all you todos gets into a (list "todo1" "todo2") which is immediately consumed by hiccup.page-helpers unordered-list function and is there converted to an html-ized list.
Good luck with compojure and friends!