How can I programmatically generate record definitions? - clojure

In my answer to a Code Review.SE question, I suggested that the OP might consider using records to represent chess pieces. Since the piece records would all be the same, except for the name, I figured I could generate them programmatically, like this:
(map #(defrecord % [color])
["Rook" "Pawn" "Queen" "King" "Knight" "Bishop"])
That sort of worked, but my record names weren't the piece names; they were random gensyms: instead of user.Rook I got user.p1__910. If I did (p1__910. :black), it did work and create a record, but you can probably see why I wasn't satisfied with that.
I also tried the following two variations:
(map #(defrecord % [color])
['Rook 'Pawn 'Queen 'King 'Knight 'Bishop])
;; Same result as above.
(map #(defrecord (symbol %) [color])
["Rook" "Knight" "Pawn" "Queen" "King" "Bishop"])
;; CompilerException java.lang.ClassCastException: clojure.lang.PersistentList
;; cannot be cast to clojure.lang.Symbol, compiling:(NO_SOURCE_PATH:1:7)
What's wrong with my approach? How can I generate a bunch of identical records from a list of names? Is this even possible?

This is a classic case of macro-contagion.
user> defrecord
CompilerException java.lang.RuntimeException: Can't take value of a macro: #'clojure.core/defrecord, compiling:(/tmp/form-init802461651064926183.clj:1:5990)
You where very close with the (symbol %) idea you just needed to make it so the defrecord expressions generated are evaluated after you provide the values.
user> (defmacro make-pieces [piece-names]
`(do ~#(map #(list 'defrecord (symbol %) '[color])
piece-names)))
#'user/make-pieces
user> (macroexpand-1 '(make-pieces ["Rook" "Pawn" "Queen" "King" "Knight" "Bishop"]))
(do (defrecord Rook [color])
(defrecord Pawn [color])
(defrecord Queen [color])
(defrecord King [color])
(defrecord Knight [color])
(defrecord Bishop [color]))
user> (make-pieces ["Rook" "Pawn" "Queen" "King" "Knight" "Bishop"])
user.Bishop

If all the records are the same, why give them different names? I'd suggest:
(defrecord Chess-Piece [name color])
What's wrong with your approach is that defrecord is a macro, so the "name" argument is interpreted as a symbol and so determines the name for the record before compiling. The mapping only occurs during runtime, after compilation.
The % in your anonymous function is rewritten as a gensym (p1__910), which in turn is interpreted as the symbol naming your new record.
What you want to do would have to be done with a macro -- you must simply ensure that by the time (defrecord some-symbol [color]) is evaluated (again, this is pre-runtime), some-symbol is what you want it to be. Maybe something along the lines of:
(defmacro defpieces [names]
(let [defs (map #(list 'defrecord (symbol %) '[color])
names)]
`(do ~#defs)))
How your code is being rewritten:
(map #(defrecord % [color])
["Rook" "Pawn" "Queen" "King" "Knight" "Bishop"])
With reader macros, this turns into (roughly):
(map (fn* [p1__910#] (defrecord p1__910# [color])
["Rook" "Pawn" "Queen" "King" "Knight" "Bishop"])
defrecord is itself a macro, so (again, before runtime) this is transformed into a giant block of code that contains:
(deftype* p1__910# user.p1__910# .....
To see the whole block, use the very useful macroexpand:
(macroexpand '(defrecord p1__910# [color]))

Related

DSL syntax with optional parameters

I'm trying to handle following DSL:
(simple-query
(is :category "car/audi/80")
(is :price 15000))
that went quite smooth, so I added one more thing - options passed to the query:
(simple-query {:page 1 :limit 100}
(is :category "car/audi/80")
(is :price 15000))
and now I have a problem how to handle this case in most civilized way. as you can see simple-query may get hash-map as a first element (followed by long list of criteria) or may have no hash-mapped options at all. moreover, I would like to have defaults as a default set of options in case when some (or all) of them are not provided explicite in query.
this is what I figured out:
(def ^{:dynamic true} *defaults* {:page 1
:limit 50})
(defn simple-query [& body]
(let [opts (first body)
[params criteria] (if (map? opts)
[(merge *defaults* opts) (rest body)]
[*defaults* body])]
(execute-query params criteria)))
I feel it's kind of messy. any idea how to simplify this construction?
To solve this problem in my own code, I have a handy function I'd like you to meet... take-when.
user> (defn take-when [pred [x & more :as fail]]
(if (pred x) [x more] [nil fail]))
#'user/take-when
user> (take-when map? [{:foo :bar} 1 2 3])
[{:foo :bar} (1 2 3)]
user> (take-when map? [1 2 3])
[nil [1 2 3]]
So we can use this to implement a parser for your optional map first argument...
user> (defn maybe-first-map [& args]
(let [defaults {:foo :bar}
[maybe-map args] (take-when map? args)
options (merge defaults maybe-map)]
... ;; do work
))
So as far as I'm concerned, your proposed solution is more or less spot on, I would just clean it up by factoring out parser for grabbing the options map (here into my take-when helper) and by factoring out the merging of defaults into its own binding statement.
As a general matter, using a dynamic var for storing configurations is an antipattern due to potential missbehavior when evaluated lazily.
What about something like this?
(defn simple-query
[& body]
(if (map? (first body))
(execute-query (merge *defaults* (first body)) (rest body))
(execute-query *defaults* body)))

Noob clojure misunderstanding: (-> % :foo :bar) vs (:bar :foo)

I'm looking through some oo clojure code to better understand it's intricacies.
A lot of the time, when there's a hash map and someone wants to take a key, they write
(-> % :hash :key) , where I think they could just write (:key :hash).
I guess my question is, what is (-> % :hash :key) doing?
-> is the Thread-first macro.
If you have a hash-map like (def mymap {:foo {:bar "s_bar"}}) then the macro will transform
(-> mymap :foo :bar)
into
(:bar (:foo mymap))
and the result will be "s_bar".
Here the macro is used to access values of a nested hash-map and it's similiar to (get-in mymap [:foo :bar])

Converting a string into a function that is not in a namespace in clojure

Here is the sample code I want to get to work:
(letfn [(CONC [f] f)
(CONT [f] (str "\newline" f))]
((voodoo "CONC") "hamster"))
Is there some voodo that will make it call the CONC function with hamster as the parameter? That is, is there some way to convert the string "CONC" into a function that is not bound to a namespace but rather to a local binding?
EDIT:
To be clearer, the way this will be called is:
(map #((voodoo (:tag %)) (:value %))
[
{:tag "CONC" :value "hamster"}
{:tag "CONT" :value "gerbil"}
]
)
I'd probably solve this by creating a map of functions indexed by strings:
(def voodoo
{"CONC" (fn [f] f)
"CONT" (fn [f] (str "\newline" f))})
Then your desired code should work directly (exploiting the fact that a map is a function that looks up it's argument)
(map #((voodoo (:tag %)) (:value %))
[
{:tag "CONC" :value "hamster"}
{:tag "CONT" :value "gerbil"}
]
)
Note that the functions here are fully anonymous - you don't need them to be referenced anywhere in the namespace for this to work. In my view this is a good thing, because unless you also need the functions somewhere else then it's best to avoid polluting your top-level namespace too much.
No. Eval does not have access to the local/lexical environment, ever.
Edit: This is not a very good answer, and not really accurate either. You could write voodoo as a macro, and then it doesn't need runtime access to the lexical environment, just compile-time. However, this means it would only work if you know at compile time that the function you want to call is x, and so it wouldn't be very useful - why not just type x instead of (voodoo "x")?
(defmacro voodoo [fname]
(symbol fname))
(letfn [(x [y] (inc y))]
((voodoo "x") 2))
;; 3
(letfn [(x [y] (inc y))]
(let [f "x"]
((voodoo f) 2)))
;; error
Well, it's sort of possible:
(defmacro voodoo [s]
(let [env (zipmap (map (partial list 'quote) (keys &env))
(keys &env))]
`(if-let [v# (~env (symbol ~s))]
v#
(throw (RuntimeException. "no such local")))))
...and now we can do weird stuff like this:
user> (defn example [s]
(letfn [(foo [x] {:foo x})
(bar [x] {:bar x})]
((voodoo s) :quux)))
#'user/example
user> (example "foo")
{:foo :quux}
user> (example "bar")
{:bar :quux}
user> (example "quux")
; Evaluation aborted.
user> *e
#<RuntimeException java.lang.RuntimeException: no such local>
That "Evaluation aborted" means an exception was thrown.
You could also replace the throw branch of the if in voodoo with (resolve (symbol ~s)) to defer to the globals if no local is found:
(defmacro voodoo [s]
(let [env (zipmap (map (partial list 'quote) (keys &env))
(keys &env))]
`(if-let [v# (~env (symbol ~s))]
v#
(resolve (symbol ~s)))))
...and now this works with definition of example as above (though note that if you are experimenting at the REPL, you will need to recompile example after redefining voodoo):
user> (defn quux [x] {:quux x})
#'user/quux
user> (example "quux")
{:quux :quux}
Now, this is an abuse of Clojure's facilities which one would do well to try to do without. If one cannot, one should probably turn to evalive by Michael Fogus; it's a library which provides an "eval-with-locals" facility in the form of an evil function and a couple of utilities. The functionality seems to be well factored too, e.g. something like the ~(zipmap ...) thing above is encapsulated as a macro and evil there appears to be almost a drop-in replacement for eval (add the env parameter and you're good to go). I haven't read the source properly, but I probably will now, looks like fun. :-)
Im not really clear what you are asking for so i'll try a couple answers:
if you have a string that is the name of the function you wish to call:
(def name "+")
((find-var (symbol (str *ns* "/" name))) 1 2 3)
this would give voodoo a deffinition like this:
(defn voodoo [name args] (apply (find-var (symbol (str *ns* "/" name))) args))
#'clojure.core/voodoo
clojure.core=> (voodoo "+" [1 2 3])
6
clojure.core=>
this assumes your function is in the current namepace ns.
if you want to turn a string into a function you could use this pattern
(let [f (eval (read-string "(fn [] 4)"))] (f))

Make a namespace qualified function name in a macro

I have a bunch of functions that map to and from some codes defined by an external system:
(defn translate-from-ib-size-tick-field-code [val]
(condp = val
0 :bid-size
3 :ask-size
5 :last-size
8 :volume))
(defn translate-to-ib-size-tick-field-code [val]
(condp = val
:bid-size 0
:ask-size 3
:last-size 5
:volume 8))
I'd like to make a macro to remove the duplication:
#_ (translation-table size-tick-field-code
{:bid-size 0
:ask-size 3
:last-size 5
:volume 8})
I started the macro like this:
(defmacro translation-table [name & vals]
`(defn ~(symbol (str "translate-to-ib-" name)) [val#]
(get ~#vals val#)))
The resulting function body seems right, but the function name is wrong:
re-actor.conversions> (macroexpand `(translation-table monkey {:a 1 :b 2}))
(def translate-to-ib-re-actor.conversions/monkey
(.withMeta (clojure.core/fn translate-to-ib-re-actor.conversions/monkey
([val__10589__auto__]
(clojure.core/get {:a 1, :b 2} val__10589__auto__))) (.meta ...
I'd like the "translate-to-ib-" to appear as part of the function name, instead of a prefix to the namespace, as it turned out.
How can I do this with clojure macros? If I am just doing it wrong and shouldn't use macros for this for some reason, please do let me know, but I would also like to know how to create function names like this to just improve my understanding of clojure and macros in general. Thanks!
The macro issue is twofold:
1) You're using a backtick when quoting the form passed to macroexpand, which namespace-qualifies the symbols within:
`(translation-table monkey {:a 1 :b 2})
=> (foo.bar/translation-table foo.bar/monkey {:a 1, :b 2})
where foo.bar is whatever namespace you're in.
2) You're constructing the name of the defn item using the symbol name, which, when it is namespace-qualified, will stringify to "foo.bar/monkey". Here's a version that will work:
(defmacro translation-table [tname & vals]
`(defn ~(symbol (str "translate-to-ib-" (name tname))) [val#]
(get ~#vals val#)))
Notice that we're getting the name of tname without the namespace part, using the name function.
As for whether a macro is the right solution here, probably not :-) For a simple case like this, I might just use maps:
(def translate-from-ib-size-tick-field-code
{0 :bid-size
3 :ask-size
5 :last-size
8 :volume})
;; swap keys & vals
(def translate-to-ib-size-tick-field-code
(zipmap (vals translate-from-ib-size-tick-field-code)
(keys translate-from-ib-size-tick-field-code)))
(translate-from-ib-size-tick-field-code 0)
=> :bid-size
(translate-to-ib-size-tick-field-code :bid-size)
=> 0
If speed is of the essence, check out case.
Some unsolicited advice on a different point: (get ~#vals val#) is extremely suspicious. Your macro alleges to take any number of arguments, but if it gets more than two it will just do something that doesn't make any sense. Eg,
(translation-table metric {:feet :meters}
{:miles :kilometers}
{:pounds :kilograms})
aside from being a terrible translation table, expands to code that always throws an exception:
(defn translate-to-ib-metric [val]
(get {:feet :meters}
{:miles :kilometers}
{:pounds :kilograms}
val)))
get doesn't take that many arguments, of course, and it's not really what you meant anyway. The simplest fix would be to only permit two arguments:
(defmacro translation-table [name vals]
(... (get ~vals val#)))
But note that this means the value map gets reconstructed every time the function is called - problematic if it's expensive to compute, or has side effects. So if I were writing this as a macro (though see Justin's answer - why would you?), I would do it as:
(defmacro translation-table [name vals]
`(let [vals# ~vals]
(defn ~(symbol (str "translate-to-ib-" name)) [val#]
(get vals# val#))))

Dynamic method calls in a Clojure macro?

I'm attempting to write a macro which will call java setter methods based on the arguments given to it.
So, for example:
(my-macro login-as-fred {"Username" "fred" "Password" "wilma"})
might expand to something like the following:
(doto (new MyClass)
(.setUsername "fred")
(.setPassword "wilma"))
How would you recommend tackling this?
Specifically, I'm having trouble working out the best way to construct the setter method name and have it interpreted it as a symbol by the macro.
The nice thing about macros is you don't actually have to dig into the classes or anything like that. You just have to write code that generates the proper s-expressions.
First a function to generate an s-expression like (.setName 42)
(defn make-call [name val]
(list (symbol (str ".set" name) val)))
then a macro to generate the expressions and plug (~#) them into a doto expression.
(defmacro map-set [class things]
`(doto ~class ~#(map make-call things))
Because it's a macro it never has to know what class the thing it's being called on is or even that the class on which it will be used exists.
Please don't construct s-expressions with list for macros. This will seriously hurt the hygiene of the macro. It is very easy to make a mistake, which is hard to track down. Please use always syntax-quote! Although, this is not a problem in this case, it's good to get into the habit of using only syntax-quote!
Depending on the source of your map, you might also consider to use keywords as keys to make it look more clojure-like. Here is my take:
(defmacro configure
[object options]
`(doto ~object
~#(map (fn [[property value]]
(let [property (name property)
setter (str ".set"
(.toUpperCase (subs property 0 1))
(subs property 1))]
`(~(symbol setter) ~value)))
options)))
This can then be used as:
user=> (macroexpand-1 '(configure (MyClass.) {:username "fred" :password "wilma"}))
(clojure.core/doto (MyClass.) (.setUsername "fred") (.setPassword "wilma"))
Someone (I believe Arthur Ulfeldt) had an answer posted that was almost correct, but it's been deleted now.
This is a working version:
(defmacro set-all [obj m]
`(doto ~obj ~#(map (fn [[k v]]
(list (symbol (str ".set" k)) v))
m)))
user> (macroexpand-1 '(set-all (java.util.Date.) {"Month" 0 "Date" 1 "Year" 2009}))
(clojure.core/doto (java.util.Date.) (.setMonth 0) (.setDate 1) (.setYear 2009))
user> (set-all (java.util.Date.) {"Month" 0 "Date" 1 "Year" 2009})
#<Date Fri Jan 01 14:15:51 PST 3909>
You have to bite the bullet and use clojure.lang.Reflector/invokeInstanceMethod like this:
(defn do-stuff [obj m]
(doseq [[k v] m]
(let [method-name (str "set" k)]
(clojure.lang.Reflector/invokeInstanceMethod
obj
method-name
(into-array Object [v]))))
obj)
(do-stuff (java.util.Date.) {"Month" 2}) ; use it
No need for a macro (as far as I know, a macro would not allow to circumvent reflection, either; at least for the general case).