Explaining this clojure syntax? - clojure

​​How​ to ​understand​ ​this ​​simple clojure code?
I ​kind of ​understand​ what it is trying to do but can someone explain the syntax in great detail so I can confidently use it?
(map (fn [x] (.toUpperCase x)) (.split "Dasher Dancer Prancer" " "))
​

From Clojure REPL:
(doc map)
clojure.core/map
([f coll] [f c1 c2] [f c1 c2 c3] [f c1 c2 c3 & colls])
Returns a lazy sequence consisting of the result of applying f to the
set of first items of each coll, followed by applying f to the set
of second items in each coll, until any one of the colls is
exhausted. Any remaining items in other colls are ignored. Function
f should accept number-of-colls arguments.
(.split "Dasher Dancer Prancer" " ") is generating a sequence of strings and each tokenized string will be passed to (fn [x] (.toUpperCase x))
However, (fn [x] (.toUpperCase x)) is too much unnecessary typing. You can do:
(map #(.toUpperCase %) (.split "Dasher Dancer Prancer" " "))
or:
(map (memfn toUpperCase) (.split "Dasher Dancer Prancer" " "))

This is defining a lambda (an anonymous function, which calls toUpperCase on its single argument), and applying it (using map) to each result of String.split().
map takes a function and a sequence of things to apply that function to, and returns a sequence of results from applying the function to the input sequence.
The following breaks the operation down into smaller pieces:
(defn upper-case-fn [^String x]
"this makes the same function, but not anonymous, and provides a type hint
(making it more efficient by avoiding the need for reflection)."
(.toUpperCase x))
;; you could also write the above like so:
(def upper-case-fn (fn [x] (.toUpperCase x)))
(def input-seq
"this assigns your input seq to a var; in the real world, with dynamic data,
you wouldn't do this"
(.split "Dasher Dancer Prancer" " "))
(def output-seq
"this is precisely the same as your sample, except that it's using a named
function rather than an anonymous one, and assigns the output to a var"
(map upper-case-fn input-seq))
;; if you enter this at a repl, you're looking at the contents of this var
output-seq

Related

Clojure: Increment every item of a list/vector by its first element

My try:
(defn inc-by-f [v]
map #(+ (first v) %) v)
EDIT
(The original question was stupid; I missed the parenthesis. I am still leaving the question, so that perhaps I learn some new ways to deal with it.)
(defn inc-by-f [v]
(map #(+ (first v) %) v))
What other cool “Clojure” ways to achieve the desired result?
"Cooler" way (answered later than https://stackoverflow.com/a/62536870/823470 by Bob Jarvis):
(defn inc-by-f
[[v1 :as v]]
(map (partial + v1) v))
This uses
sequential destructuring to extract the first element of the input vector while still maintaining a reference to the entire vector using :as
partial to avoid the need for an anonymous function literal, which increases readability in some peoples' opinion (count me in!)
Note that the vector destructuring is only useful if the increment value is in a place that is easily accessible by destructuring. It could work if the value was the "2nd in the vector" ([_ v2 :as v]), for example, but not if the value was "the maximum element in the vector". In that case, the max would have to be obtained explicitly, e.g.
(defn inc-by-max
[v]
(map (partial + (apply max v)) v))
Also note that anonymous functions are evaluated on each call, unlike partial which is handed all its arguments and then those no longer need to be evaluated. In other words, if we take the first element of a 1000-element v inside the anonymous function, that will result in 1000 calls to first, instead of just one if we get the first element and pass it to partial. Demonstration:
user=> (dorun (map #(+ (do (println "called") 42) %) (range 3)))
called
called
called
=> nil
user=> (dorun (map (partial + (do (println "called") 42)) (range 3)))
called
=> nil
You're missing parentheses around the map invocation. The following works as you expect:
(defn inc-by-f [v]
(map #(+ (first v) %) v))

clojure.lang.LazySeq cannot be cast to java.lang.CharSequence

I am writing a function that, for any given string, replaces any digits within that String with the same number of '.' characters.
Examples:
AT2X -> AT..X
QW3G45 -> QW...G.........
T3Z1 -> T...Z.
I've written the following Clojure function but I am getting an error I don't quite understand:
java.lang.ClassCastException: clojure.lang.LazySeq (in module: Unnamed Module) cannot be case to java.lang.Charsequence
I'm interpreting from the error that I need to force an evaluation of a lazy sequence back into a String (or CharSequence) but I can't figure out where to do so or if this is correct.
(defn dotify
;;Replaces digits with the same number of '.'s for use in traditional board formats
[FEN]
(let [values (doall (filter isDigit (seq FEN)))]
(fn [values]
(let [value (first values)]
(str/replace FEN value (fn dots [number]
(fn [s times]
(if (> times 0)
(recur (str s ".") (dec times)))) "" (Character/digit number 10)) value))
(recur (rest values))) values))
There is a standard clojure.string/replace function that may handle that case. Its last argument might be not just a string or a pattern but also a function that turns a found fragment into what you want.
Let's prepare such a function first:
(defn replacer [sum-str]
(let [num (read-string num-str)]
(apply str (repeat num \.))))
You may try it in this way:
user> (replacer "2")
..
user> (replacer "9")
.........
user> (replacer "22")
......................
user>
Now pass it into replace as follows:
user> (clojure.string/replace "a2b3c11" #"\d+" replacer)
a..b...c...........
Here's a way to do this using reduce:
(defn dotify [s]
(->> s
(reduce (fn [acc elem]
(if (Character/isDigit elem)
(let [dots (Integer/parseInt (str elem))]
(apply conj acc (repeat dots \.)))
(conj acc elem)))
[])
(apply str)))
(dotify "zx4g1z2h")
=> "zx....g.z..h"
And another version using mapcat:
(defn dotify-mapcat [s]
(apply str
(mapcat (fn [c]
(if (Character/isDigit c)
(repeat (Integer/parseInt (str c)) \.)
[c]))
s)))
There are some issues in your example:
Many of the internal forms are themselves functions, but it looks like you just want their bodies or implementations instead of wrapping them in functions.
It's hard to tell by the indentation/whitespace, but the entire function is just recur-ing, the fn above it is not being used or returned.
One of the arguments to str/replace is a function that returns a function.
It helps to break the problem down into smaller pieces. For one, you know you'll need to examine each character in a string and decide whether to just return it or expand it into a sequence of dots. So you can start with a function:
(defn expand-char [^Character c]
(if (Character/isDigit c)
(repeat (Integer/parseInt (str c)) \.)
[c]))
Then use that function that operates on one character at a time in a higher-order function that operates on the entire string:
(apply str (mapcat expand-char s))
=> "zx....g.z..h"
Note this is also ~5x faster than the examples above because of the ^Character type-hint in expand-char function.
You can do this with str/replace too:
(defn expand-char [s]
(if (Character/isDigit ^Character (first s))
(apply str (repeat (Integer/parseInt s) \.))
s))
(str/replace "zx4g1z2h" #"." expand-char)
=> "zx....g.z..h"

A Vampire Data Analysis Program for the FWPD, Clojure for the Brave and True

I am trying to understand the program "A Vampire Data Analysis Program for the FWPD" at the end of the 4th chapter in the book "Clojure for the Brave and True". Here is the code:
(ns fwpd.core)
(def filename "suspects.csv")
(def vamp-keys [:name :glitter-index])
(defn str->int
[str]
(Integer. str))
(def conversions {:name identity
:glitter-index str->int})
(defn convert
[vamp-key value]
((get conversions vamp-key) value))
(defn parse
"Convert a CSV into rows of columns"
[string]
(map #(clojure.string/split % #",")
(clojure.string/split string #"\n")))
(defn mapify
"Return a seq of maps like {:name \"Edward Cullen\" :glitter-index 10}"
[rows]
(map (fn [unmapped-row]
(reduce (fn [row-map [vamp-key value]]
(assoc row-map vamp-key (convert vamp-key value)))
{}
(map vector vamp-keys unmapped-row)))
rows))
(defn glitter-filter
[minimum-glitter records]
(filter #(>= (:glitter-index %) minimum-glitter) records))
Can somebody help about conversions and convert function?
conversions is a map, and as such contains key value pairs, called map-entries. get is a function that allows you to get the respective value returned when all you have is a key, and of course the map. So for convert to do its job then vamp-key must be either :name or :glitter-index (as they are the only keys on the map). Lets assume it is :glitter-index and that str->int is returned. Thus:
((get conversions vamp-key) value))
, becomes:
(str->int value)
So vamp-key is needed to obtain the correct function to convert the value. If :glitter-index and "10" are the arguments passed into the function then 10 will be returned.

Combining methods in Clojure

Suppose we have a multimethod foo. It has several realizations. Let's say that one of them is called when argument of foo is a string that contains character \r and another is executed when argument of foo is a string containing character \!. Pseudocode:
(defmulti foo ???) ; can't come up with function..
(defmethod foo \r [_]
(println "one"))
(defmethod foo \! [_]
(println "two"))
So when we call our function like this:
(foo "right!") ;; desired output:
one
two
;; => nil
Important thing here is that list of supported methods should be not rigid, but expandable, so new methods can be added later without touching the original code.
Although I improved my Clojure skill significantly in last few days, I still lack experience. My best idea is to keep a map with pairs 'character - function' and then manually traverse it and execute right functions. In this case I will also need some interface to register new functions, etc. What is idiomatic solution?
I think multimethods don't work the way you expect them to work.
That is: the dispatch in multimethods is called only once for a single multimethod call, so there's no way of getting the result you expect (both 'one' and 'two' printed for "right!" as argument) unless you define one implementation that actually handles the case of having both \r and \! in the input string and prints the output you want.
This will not be easily expandable.
Nicer way to achieve what you want is to make multiple calls explicitly by iterating the input string:
; You want the dispatch function to just return the character passed to it.
(defmulti foo identity)
; The argument list here is mandatory, but we don't use them at all, hence '_'
(defmethod foo \r [_]
(println "one"))
(defmethod foo \! [_]
(println "two"))
; You need the default case for all the other characters
(defmethod foo :default [_]
())
; Iterates the string and executes foo for each character
(defn bar [s]
(doseq [x s]
(foo x)))
so calling
(bar "right!")
will print:
one
two
Edit
If you need to access the whole string inside the multimethod body, then pass it explicitly together with the character:
; You want the dispatch function to just return the character passed to it as the first arg.
(defmulti foo (fn [c _] c))
(defmethod foo \r [c s]
(println "one"))
(defmethod foo \! [c s]
(println "two"))
; The default now takes two arguments which we ignore
(defmethod foo :default [_ _] ())
; Iterates the string and executes foo for each character
(defn bar [s]
(doseq [x s]
(foo x s)))
A plain list of functions would allow arbitrary conditionals. Also Regexs may make your life simpler if you are dealing with strings:
;; start with some functions
(defn on-r [x]
(when (re-find #"r" x)
"one"))
(defn on-! [x]
(when (re-find #"!" x)
"two"))
(def fns (atom [on-r on-!]))
;; call all functions on some value
(keep #(% "right!") #fns)
=> ("one" "two")
(keep #(% "aaaa") #fns)
=> ()
;; later add more functions
(defn on-three [x]
(when (= 3 (count x))
"three"))
(swap! fns conj on-three)
(keep #(% "bar") #fns)
=> ("one" "three")
;; or just use different rules altogether
(def other-fns [#(when (rand-nth [true false])
(str % (rand-int 10)))
#(when (nil? %) "nil")])
(keep #(% nil) other-fns)
=> ("3" "nil")

Clojure: Implementing the comp function

4Clojure Problem 58 is stated as:
Write a function which allows you to create function compositions. The parameter list should take a variable number of functions, and create a function applies them from right-to-left.
(= [3 2 1] ((__ rest reverse) [1 2 3 4]))
(= 5 ((__ (partial + 3) second) [1 2 3 4]))
(= true ((__ zero? #(mod % 8) +) 3 5 7 9))
(= "HELLO" ((__ #(.toUpperCase %) #(apply str %) take) 5 "hello world"))
Here __ should be replaced by the solution.
In this problem the function comp should not be employed.
A solution I found is:
(fn [& xs]
(fn [& ys]
(reduce #(%2 %1)
(apply (last xs) ys) (rest (reverse xs)))))
It works. But I don't really understand how the reduce works here. How does it represent (apply f_1 (apply f_2 ...(apply f_n-1 (apply f_n args))...)?
Let's try modifying that solution in 3 stages. Stay with each for a while and see if you get it. Stop if and when you do lest I confuse you more.
First, let's have more descriptive names
(defn my-comp [& fns]
(fn [& args]
(reduce (fn [result-so-far next-fn] (next-fn result-so-far))
(apply (last fns) args) (rest (reverse fns)))))
then factor up some
(defn my-comp [& fns]
(fn [& args]
(let [ordered-fns (reverse fns)
first-result (apply (first ordered-fns) args)
remaining-fns (rest ordered-fns)]
(reduce
(fn [result-so-far next-fn] (next-fn result-so-far))
first-result
remaining-fns))))
next replace reduce with a loop which does the same
(defn my-comp [& fns]
(fn [& args]
(let [ordered-fns (reverse fns)
first-result (apply (first ordered-fns) args)]
(loop [result-so-far first-result, remaining-fns (rest ordered-fns)]
(if (empty? remaining-fns)
result-so-far
(let [next-fn (first remaining-fns)]
(recur (next-fn result-so-far), (rest remaining-fns))))))))
My solution was:
(fn [& fs]
(reduce (fn [f g]
#(f (apply g %&))) fs))
Lets try that for:
((
(fn [& fs]
(reduce (fn [f g]
#(f (apply g %&))) fs))
#(.toUpperCase %)
#(apply str %)
take)
5 "hello world"))
fs is a list of the functions:
#(.toUpperCase %)
#(apply str %)
take
The first time through the reduce, we set
f <--- #(.toUpperCase %)
g <--- #(apply str %)
We create an anonymous function, and assign this to the reduce function's accumulator.
#(f (apply g %&)) <---- uppercase the result of apply str
Next time through the reduce, we set
f <--- uppercase the result of apply str
g <--- take
Again we create a new anonymous function, and assign this to the reduce function's accumulator.
#(f (apply g %&)) <---- uppercase composed with apply str composed with take
fs is now empty, so this anonymous function is returned from reduce.
This function is passed 5 and "hello world"
The anonymous function then:
Does take 5 "hello world" to become (\h \e \l \l \o)
Does apply str to become "hello"
Does toUppercase to become "HELLO"
Here's an elegent (in my opinion) definition of comp:
(defn comp [& fs]
(reduce (fn [result f]
(fn [& args]
(result (apply f args))))
identity
fs))
The nested anonymous functions might make it hard to read at first, so let's try to address that by pulling them out and giving them a name.
(defn chain [f g]
(fn [& args]
(f (apply g args))))
This function chain is just like comp except that it only accepts two arguments.
((chain inc inc) 1) ;=> 3
((chain rest reverse) [1 2 3 4]) ;=> (3 2 1)
((chain inc inc inc) 1) ;=> ArityException
The definition of comp atop chain is very simple and helps isolate what reduce is bringing to the show.
(defn comp [& fs]
(reduce chain identity fs))
It chains together the first two functions, the result of which is a function. It then chains that function with the next, and so on.
So using your last example:
((comp #(.toUpperCase %) #(apply str %) take) 5 "hello world") ;=> "HELLO"
The equivalent only using chain (no reduce) is:
((chain identity
(chain (chain #(.toUpperCase %)
#(apply str %))
take))
5 "hello world")
;=> "HELLO"
At a fundamental level, reduce is about iteration. Here's what an implementation in an imperative style might look like (ignoring the possibility of multiple arities, as Clojure's version supports):
def reduce(f, init, seq):
result = init
for item in seq:
result = f(result, item)
return result
It's just capturing the pattern of iterating over a sequence and accumulating a result. I think reduce has a sort of mystique around it which can actually make it much harder to understand than it needs to be, but if you just break it down you'll definitely get it (and probably be surprised how often you find it useful).
Here is my solution:
(defn my-comp
([] identity)
([f] f)
([f & r]
(fn [& args]
(f (apply (apply my-comp r) args)))))
I like A. Webb's solution better, though it does not behave exactly like comp because it does not return identity when called without any arguments. Simply adding a zero-arity body would fix that issue though.
Consider this example:
(def c (comp f1 ... fn-1 fn))
(c p1 p2 ... pm)
When c is called:
first comp's rightmost parameter fn is applied to the p* parameters ;
then fn-1 is applied to the result of the previous step ;
(...)
then f1 is applied to the result of the previous step, and its result is returned
Your sample solution does exactly the same.
first the rightmost parameter (last xs) is applied to the ys parameters:
(apply (last xs) ys)
the remaining parameters are reversed to be fed to reduce:
(rest (reverse xs))
reduce takes the provided initial result and list of functions and iteratively applies the functions to the result:
(reduce #(%2 %1) ..init.. ..functions..)