it seem like clojure's let is sequential and would correspond to a scheme let* .
Does clojure have an unsequential binding mechanism like scheme's let?
I believe binding macro is parallel not sequential.
See: http://clojuredocs.org/clojure_core/clojure.core/binding
letfn is a parallel binding form for functions that exists to allow people to write mutually recursive local functions. It's not quite as general as you seek though it can be used in a pinch.
user> (letfn [(a [] 4)
(b [] c)
(c [] a)]
(a))
4
Binding can be used so long as you are assigning values to things in vars and want dynamic scoping
user> (def ^:dynamic x 4)
#'user/x
user> (defn foo [] x)
#'user/foo
user> (binding [x 8] (+ x (foo)))
16 ; the value of x that gets called by foo is modified by the caller
; yielding 16 instead of 12
user> (binding [x 8 a 7] (+ x (foo)))
; Evaluation aborted.
Unable to resolve var: a in this context
if you try to use parallel bindings the dynamic scoping will give different results than let* would in Scheme
user> (def ^:dynamic a 2)
#'user/a
user> (binding [x 8 a 7] (+ x a))
15
user> (binding [x 8 a (+ x 2)] (+ x a))
14 ; this would be 18 if the binding of x to 8 had been used
; instead the root value of 4 was used.
In general It is most common to bind sequentially or use nested lets if required.
binding doesn't give you the same capability as a parallel let because it depends on the existence of bindings. As mentioned letfn will work as long as you don't mind wrapping your values in functions. Another solution is to write a parallel let using a macro:
(defmacro letp
[bindings & exprs]
(let [bindings (partition 2 bindings)
vars (->> bindings (map first) vec)
values (->> bindings (map second))]
`((fn ~vars ~#exprs)
~#values)))
So the following holds:
(def a 7)
(letp [a 5 b a] b)
;;=> 7
Related
I'm a Java and learning clojure.
What is exactly destructuring in clojure?
I can see this blog saying:
The simplest example of destructuring is assigning the values of a
vector.
user=> (def point [5 7])
#'user/point
user=> (let [[x y] point]
(println "x:" x "y:" y))
x: 5 y: 7
what he meant by assigning the values of a vector? Whats the real use of it?
Thanks in advance
point is a variable that contains a vector of values. [x y] is a vector of variable names.
When you assign point to [x y], destructuring means that the variables each get assigned the corresponding element in the value.
This is just a simpler way of writing:
(let [x (nth point 0) y (nth point 1)]
(println "x:" x "y:" y))
See Clojure let binding forms for another way to use destructuring.
It means making a picture of the structure of some data with symbols
((fn [[d [s [_ _]]]]
(apply str (concat (take 2 (name d)) (butlast (name s)) (drop 7 (name d))) ))
'(describing (structure (of data))))
=> "destructuring"
((fn [[d e _ _ _ _ _ i n g _ _ _ _ _ s t r u c t u r e & etc]]
[d e s t r u c t u r i n g]) "describing the structure of data")
=> [\d \e \s \t \r \u \c \t \u \r \i \n \g]
Paste those ^ examples into a REPL & play around with them to see how it works.
The term "Destructuring" sounds heavier than it is.
It's like visually matching shapes to shapes. For example:
(def nums [1 2 3 4 5 6])
(let [[a b c & others] nums]
;; do something
)
Imagine the effect of the let binding as:
1 2 3 4 5 6
| | | ( )
v v v v
[a b c & others]
;; Now we can use a, b, c, others, and of course nums,
;; inside the let binding:
user=> (let [[a b c & others] nums]
(println a)
(println b)
(println c)
(println others)
(println nums))
1
2
3
(4 5 6)
[1 2 3 4 5 6]
The goal is to concisely name items of a collection, for use inside the scope of a let binding or function (i.e. within a "lexical scope").
Why "concise"? Well, without destructuring, the let binding would look like this:
(let [a (nth nums 0) ;; or (first nums)
b (nth nums 1) ;; or (second nums)
c (nth nums 2)
others (drop 3 nums)]
;; do something
)
This illustrates the basic idea. There are many details (ifs and buts, and dos and don'ts), and it's worth reading further, in depth. Here are a few resources that explain more, with examples:
My personal favourite: Jay Fields's post on Clojure Destructuring:
http://blog.jayfields.com/2010/07/clojure-destructuring.html
A gentle introduction to destructuring, from Braveclojure:
http://www.braveclojure.com/do-things/#3_3_3__Destructuring
its used to name components of a data structure, and get their values.
Say you want to have a "person" structure. In java, you would go all the way to create a class with constructors, getters and setters for the various fields, such as name, age, height etc.
In Clojure you could skip the "ceremony" and simply have a vector with 3 slots, first for name, than for age and last for height. Now you could simply name these "components" and get their values, like so:
(def person ["Fred" 30 180])
(let [[name age height] person]
(println name age height)) ;; will print: Fred 30 180
p.s - there are better ways to make a "person" in clojure (such as records etc), this is just an example to understand what destructuring does.
Destructuring is a convenience feature which allows local bindings (not variables!) to be created easily by taking apart complex data structures (seq-ables like vectors, or associatives like hash-maps), as it is described here.
Take the following example:
(let [v [1 2 3 4 5 6]
v_0 (first v)
v_1 (nth v 1)
v_rest (drop 2 v)
m {:a 1 :b 2}
m_a (get m :a)
m_b (get m :b)
m_default (get m :c "DEFAULT")]
(println v, v_0, v_1, v_rest, m, m_a, m_b, m_default))
Then the above code can be simplified using destructuring bindings like the following:
(let [[v_0 v_1 & v_rest :as v]
[1 2 3 4 5 6]
{m_a :a m_b :b m_default :c :or {m_default "DEFAULT"} :as m}
{:a 1 :b 2}]
(println v, v_0, v_1, v_rest, m, m_a, m_b, m_default))
Destructuring patterns can be used in let bindings and function parameters (fn, defn, letfn, etc.), and also in macros to return let bindings containing such destructuring patterns.
One important usage to note is with the if-letand when-let macros. The if statement is always evaluated on the whole form, even if the destructured bindings themselves evaluate to nil:
(if-let [{:keys [a b]}
{:c 1 :d 2}]
(println a b)
(println "Not this one"))
Destructuring binds a pattern of names to a complex object by binding each name to the corresponding part of the object.
To bind to a sequence, you present a vector of names. For example ...
(let [[x y] (list 5 7)] ... )
... is equivalent to
(let [x 5, y 7] ... )
To bind to a map or to a vector by index lookup, you present a map of name-to-key pairs. For example ...
(let [{x 0, y 1} [5 7]] ... )
... is equivalent to both of the above.
As others have mentioned, you can find a full description of this powerful mechanism here.
The question doesn't really explain what I want to do but I couldn't think of anything else.
I have an empty map in the outer let function in a piece of code, and an integer array.
I want to iterate through the integer array, perform a simple task, and keep appending the resulting map to the variables in the outer variables.
(let [a {} ;outer variables
b {}]
(doseq [x [1 2 3]]
(let [r (merge a {x (* x x)}) ;I want to append this to a
s (merge b {x (+ x x)})] ;and this to b
(println (str "--a--" r "--b--" s)))))
But as soon as I get out of doseq, my a and b vars are still empty. I get that the scope of a and b doesn't extend outside of doseq for it to persist any changes done from within and that they are immutable.
How do I calculate the values of a and b in such cases, please? I tried to extract the functionality of doseq into another function and calling let with:
(let [a (do-that-function)])
etc but even then I couldn't figure out a way to keep track of all the modifications within doseq loop to then send back as a whole.
Am I approaching this in a wrong way?
Thanks
edit
Really, what I'm trying to do is this:
(let [a (doseq [x [1 2 3]] {x (* x x)})]
(println a))
but doseq returns nil so a is going to be nil :-s
All variables in clojure are immutable. If you need a mutable state you should use atoms or refs.
But in your case you can simply switch from doseq to for:
(let [a (for [x [1 2 3]] {x (* x x)})]
(println a))
Here is an example of solving your problem with atoms:
(let [a (atom {})
b (atom {})]
(doseq [x [1 2 3]]
(swap! a assoc x (* x x))
(swap! b assoc x (+ x x)))
(println "a:" #a)
(println "b:" #b))
But you should avoid using mutable state as far as possible:
(let [l [1 2 3]
a (zipmap l (map * l l))
b (zipmap l (map + l l))]
(println "a:" a)
(println "b:" b))
The trick is to think in terms of flows of data adding to existing data making new data, instead of changing past data. For your specific problem, where a data structure is being built, reduce is typically used:
(reduce (fn [result x] (assoc result x (* x x))) {} [1 2 3])
hehe, I just noticed that "reduce" might seem confusing given that it's building something, but the meaning is that a collection of things is "reduced" to one thing. In this case, we give reduce an empty map to begin with, which binds to result in the fn, and each successive mapping over the collection results in a new result, which we add to again with assoc.
You could also say:
(into {} (map (fn [x] [x (* x x)]) [1 2 3]))
In your question you wanted to make multiple things at once from a single collection. Here's one way to do that:
(reduce (fn [[a b] x] [(assoc a x (* x x)) (assoc b x (+ x x))]) [{} {}] [1 2 3])
Here we used destructuring syntax to refer to our two result structures - just make a picture of the data [with [vectors]]. Note that reduce is still only returning one thing - a vector in this case.
And, we could generalize that:
(defn xfn [n fs]
(reduce
(fn [results x] (map (fn [r f] (assoc r x (f x x))) results fs))
(repeat (count fs) {}) (range n)))
=> (xfn 4 [* + -])
({3 9, 2 4, 1 1, 0 0} {3 6, 2 4, 1 2, 0 0} {3 0, 2 0, 1 0, 0 0})
The result is a list of maps. And if you wanted to take intermediate steps in the building of these results, you could change reduce to reductions. Generally, map for transforming collections, reduce for building a single result from a collection.
the other day I was trying to come up with an example of closure in Clojure. I came up with and example I had seen before and thought it was appropriate.
Alas, I was told it was not a good one and that I should provide something with let.
Can anyone shed some light?
(defn pow [x n] (apply * (repeat x n)))
(defn sq [y] (pow y 2))
(defn qb [y] (pow y 3))
A closure is a function that has access to some named value/variable outside its own scope, so from a higher scope surrounding the function when it was created (this excludes function arguments and local named values created within the function). Your examples do not qualify, because every function just uses named values from their own scopes.
Example:
(def foo
(let [counter (atom 0)]
(fn [] (do (swap! counter inc) #counter))))
(foo) ;;=> 1
(foo) ;;=> 2
(foo) ;;=> 3, etc
Now foo is a function that returns the value of an atom that is outside its scope. Because the function still holds a reference to that atom, the atom will not be garbage-collected as long as foo is needed.
Function that returns function i.e higher order functions are nice examples of closure.
(defn pow [n]
(fn [x] (apply * (repeat n x))))
(def sq (pow 2))
(def qb (pow 3))
Another example of closure. There are two functions that share the same environment (state).
(defn create-object [init-state]
(let [state (atom init-state)]
{:getter (fn []
#state)
:setter (fn [new-val]
(reset! state new-val))}))
(defn test-it []
(let [{:keys [setter getter]} (create-object :init-value)]
(println (getter))
(setter :new-value)
(println (getter))))
(test-it)
=> :init-value
:new-value
I wanted to have something that setup constant value(s) that are to be used each time.
(def myran
(let [constrand (rand)]
(fn [n] (* n constrand))))
(myran 3)
2.7124521745892096
(myran 1)
0.9041507248630699
(myran 3)
2.7124521745892096
This will only set a value for "constrand" once. This is a very contrived example, but I wanted to be able to do something like:
This is from: JavaScript: The Good Parts
I am trying to delay various calculations. I have functions of the following form,
(defn a-fn [a b]
(let [a (if (fn? a)
a
#(identity a))
b (if (fn? b)
b
#(identity b))]
(+ (a) (b))))
this allows me to pass a-fn, a value or a function that returns the value,
(a-fn 1 2)
(defn x [] 1)
(defn y [] 2)
(a-fn x y)
(a-fn x 2)
what I do is build a list of functions (like the one above) to operate on some data, fns may use other fns to retrieve their arguments or in some cases things don't change and they are assigned values as arguments. I was wondering is there a better way to achive this kind of behavior?
You can use delay and force:
user=> (defn a-fn [a b] (+ (force a) (force b)))
#'user/a-fn
user=> (a-fn 1 2)
3
user=> (def x (delay 1))
#'user/x
user=> (def y (delay 2))
#'user/y
user=> (a-fn x y)
3
user=> (a-fn x 2)
3
If you try something like (delay (prn :hello) 1) to test when the computation is done, note that printing the Delay object forces it; so (def x (delay ...)) is safe, but typing a plain (delay ...) in the REPL prompt is not.
There might be a more elegant way to do what you want, but here's at least a more generic version of it:
(defn delayed [reducer & fs]
(apply reducer (for [f fs] (if (fn? f) (f) f))))
(def a-fn (partial delayed +))
So delayed takes an arbitrary function and a list of function/values. If expands all the args and then applies the function to them. Then we use partial to define your a-fn using +:
user=> (a-fn 1 2)
3
user=> (a-fn (constantly 1) 2)
3
user=> (a-fn (constantly 1) 2 4)
7
Alternatively, it might make sense for delayed to return a function rather than using partial. Note sure which is better.
A better name than "delayed" is welcome :)
I have the following defined in clojure:
(def ax '(fn x [] (+ 1 z)))
(let [z 4]
(str (eval ax))
)
:but instead of returning :
5
: I get :
Unable to resolve symbol: z in this context
: I have tried changing "let" to "binding" but this still does not work. Does anyone know what is wrong here?
Making the smallest possible changes to your code to get it to work:
(def ^:dynamic z nil)
(def ax '(fn x [] (+ 1 z)))
(binding [z 4]
(str ((eval ax)))
)
The two changes are defining z as a dynamic var, so that the name resolves, and putting another paren around (eval ax), because ax is returning a function.
A little bit nicer is to change the definition of ax:
(def ^:dynamic z nil)
(def ax '(+ 1 z))
(binding [z 4]
(str (eval ax))
)
So evaluating ax immediately gets the result you want, rather than returning a function that does it.
Nicer again is to skip the eval:
(def ^:dynamic z nil)
(defn ax [] (+ 1 z))
(binding [z 5]
(str (ax))
)
But best of all is to not have z floating around as a var, and pass it in to ax as Mimsbrunnr and Joost suggested.
The short answer is don't use eval. You almost never need to, and certainly not here.
For example:
user> (defn ax [z]
(+ 1 z))
#'user/ax
user> (let [f #(ax 4)]
(f))
5
Right so I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to do here.
I mean this works, though it's not using eval it's defining x to be the function (fn [ x ] (+ x 1))
> (def x #(+ 1 %))
#'sandbox102711/x
> (x 4)
5
In the end, eval is not something you should be using. As a Lisp Cljoure's support for lambda abstraction and macros ( see the fn definition above ) should remove the need.