In clojure how do I require a multimethod? - clojure

I know I can do (:use function) but how do I do this for a multimethod?

Multimethods are used from other namespaces in the same way as functions.
If you have the following in com/example/foo.clj
(ns com.example.foo)
(defn f [x]
(* x x))
(defmulti m first)
(defmethod m :a [coll]
(map inc (rest coll)))
In the file com/example/bar.clj you can use both f and m in the same manner:
(ns com.example.bar
(:use [com.example.foo :only [f m]]))
(defn g []
(println (f 5)) ; Call the function
(println (m [:a 1 2 3]))) ; Call the multimethod
;; You can also define new cases for the multimethod defined in foo
;; which are then available everywhere m is
(defmethod m :b [coll]
(map dec (rest coll)))
I hope this answers your question!

Related

fn and let inside clojure macro

I'm running into some limitations of Clojure macros. I wonder how to optimize the following code?
(defmacro ssplit-7-inefficient [x]
(let [t 7]
;; Duplicated computation here!
`(do [(first (split-with #(not (= '~t %)) '~x))
(drop 1 (second (split-with #(not (= '~t %)) '~x)))])))
(ssplit-7-inefficient (foo 7 bar baz))
;; Returns: [(foo) (bar baz)]
Here are some approaches that don't work:
(defmacro ssplit-7-fails [x]
(let [t 7]
`(do ((fn [[a b]] [a (drop 1 b)]) (split-with #(not (= '~t %)) '~x)))))
(ssplit-7-fails (foo 7 bar baz))
;; Error: Call to clojure.core/fn did not conform to spec.
(defmacro ssplit-7-fails-again [x]
(let [t 7]
`(do
(let [data (split-with #(not (= '~t %)) '~x)]
((fn [[a b]] [a (drop 1 b)]) data)))))
(ssplit-7-fails-again (foo 7 bar baz))
;; Error: Call to clojure.core/let did not conform to spec.
Note that split-with splits only once. You can use some destructuring to get what you want:
(defmacro split-by-7 [arg]
`((fn [[x# [_# & z#]]] [x# z#]) (split-with (complement #{7}) '~arg)))
(split-by-7 (foo 7 bar baz))
=> [(foo) (bar baz)]
In other use cases, partition-by can be also useful:
(defmacro split-by-7 [arg]
`(->> (partition-by #{7} '~arg)
(remove #{[7]})))
(split-by-7 (foo 7 bar baz))
=> ((foo) (bar baz))
It is not so easy to reason about macros in Clojure - (in my view macroexpand-1 alienates the code a lot - in contrast to Common Lisp's macroexpand-1 ...).
My way was first to build a helper function.
(defn %split-7 [x]
(let [y 7]
(let [[a b] (split-with #(not= y %) x)]
[a (drop 1 b)])))
This function uses destructuring so that the split-with is "efficient".
It does nearly exactly what the macro should do. Just that one has to quote
the argument - so that it works.
(%split-7 '(a 7 b c))
;;=> [(a) (b c)]
From this step to the macro is not difficult.
The macro should just automatically quote the argument when inserting into the helper function's call.
(defmacro split-7 [x]
`(%split-7 '~x))
So that we can call:
(split-7 (a 7 b c))
;; => [(a) (b c)]
Using this trick, even generalize the function to:
(defn %split-by [x y]able like this
(let [[a b] (split-with #(not= y %) x)]
[a (drop 1 b)]))
(defmacro split-by [x y]
`(%split-by '~x ~y))
(split-by (a 7 b c) 7)
;; => [(a) (b c)]
(split-by (a 7 b c 9 d e) 9)
;; => [(a 7 b c) (d e)]
The use of (helper) functions in the macro body - and even other macros - or recursive functions or recursive macros - macros which call other macros - shows how powerful lisp macros are. Because it shows that you can use the entirety of lisp when formulating/defining macros. Something what most language's macros usually aren't able to do.

Setting a debug function from the command line in Clojure

I have a namespace like this:
(ns foo.core)
(def ^:dynamic *debug-fn*
"A function taking arguments [bar baz]"
nil)
(defn bar-info
[bar _]
(println bar))
(defn baz-info
[_ baz]
(println baz))
(defn do-stuff
[bar baz]
(when *debug-fn* (*debug-fn* bar baz)))
(defn -main
[& {:keys [debug-fn]}]
(binding [*debug-fn* (symbol debug-fn)] ;; THIS WON'T WORK!
(do-stuff 27 42)))
What I would like to do is allow a debug function to be specified from the command line like this: lein run bar-info or lein run baz-info.
I'm not sure how to take the string specified as a command-line argument and turn it into the namespace-qualified function to bind. Do I need a macro to do this?
Use ns-resolve, you will need to specify namespace where your function is defined though.
user=> (defn f [n] (* n n n))
#'user/f
user=> ((ns-resolve *ns* (symbol "f")) 10)
1000
Use alter-var-root:
user=> (doc alter-var-root)
-------------------------
clojure.core/alter-var-root
([v f & args])
Atomically alters the root binding of var v by applying f to its
current value plus any args
nil
user=> (alter-var-root #'*debug-fn* (fn [v] (fn [x] (println x) x)))
#<user$eval171$fn__172$fn__173 user$eval171$fn__172$fn__173#7c93d88e>
user=> (*debug-fn* 1)
1
1
Though I've accepted Guillermo's answer above, I figured that it might also be useful to add the solution I ended up going with:
(def debug-fns
{:bar-info (fn [bar _] (println bar))
:baz-info (fn [_ baz] (println baz))
(def active-debug-fns (atom []))
(defn activate-debug-fn!
[fn-key]
(let [f (debug-fns fn-key)]
(if f
(swap! active-debug-fns conj f)
(warn (str "Debug function " fn-key " not found! Available functions are: "
(join " " (map name (keys debug-fns))))))))
(defn debug-fn-keys
[args]
(if (args "--debug")
(split (or (args "--debug") "") #",")
[]))
(defn do-stuff
[bar baz]
(doseq [f #active-debug-fns]
(f bar baz)))
(defn -main
[& args]
(let [args (apply hash-map args)]
(doseq [f (debug-fn-keys args)]
(activate-debug-fn! (keyword k)))
(do-stuff 27 42)))
So now you can say something like lein run --debug bar-info to get info on bars, or lein run --debug bar,baz to get info on both bars and bazes.
Any suggestions to make this more idiomatic will be happily accepted and edited in. :)

Clojure multimethod dispatching on functions and values

I have a function that returns the indexes in seq s at which value v exists:
(defn indexes-of [v s]
(map first (filter #(= v (last %)) (zipmap (range) s))))
What I'd like to do is extend this to apply any arbitrary function for the existence test. My idea is to use a multimethod, but I'm not sure exactly how to detect a function. I want to do this:
(defmulti indexes-of ???)
(defmethod indexes-of ??? [v s] ;; v is a function
(map first (filter v (zipmap (range) s))))
(defmethod indexes-of ??? [v s] ;; v is not a function
(indexes-of #(= v %) s))
Is a multimethod the way to go here? If so, how can I accomplish what I'm trying to do?
If you want to use a multimethod it should be on the filter function, which is the one changing according to the existence test type.
So
(defmulti filter-test (fn [value element]
(cond
(fn? value) :function
:else :value)))
(defmethod filter-test :function
[value element]
(apply value [element]))
(defmethod filter-test :value
[value element]
(= value element))
(defn indexes-of [v s]
(map first (filter #(filter-test v (last %)) (zipmap (range) s))))
Consider the JVM doesn't support first-class functions, or lambdas, out of the box, so there's no "function" data type to dispatch on, that's the reason the fn? test.
None the less the predicate solution proposed by noisesmith is the proper way to go in this situation IMO.
(defmulti indexes-of (fn [v _]
(if (fn? v)
:function
:value)))
(defmethod indexes-of :function
[f coll]
(keep-indexed (fn [i v] (when (f v) i)) coll))
(defmethod indexes-of :value
[v coll]
(indexes-of (partial = v) coll))
How about something simpler and more general:
(defn index-matches [predicate s]
(map first (filter (comp predicate second) (map vector (range) s))))
user> (index-matches even? (reverse (range 10)))
(1 3 5 7 9)
user> (index-matches #{3} [0 1 2 3 1 3 44 3 1 3])
(3 5 7 9)
thanks to a suggestion from lgrapenthin, this function is also now effective for lazy input:
user> (take 1 (index-matches #{300000} (range)))
(300000)

Clojure local-variables

I want to create a function (thunk) that will return successive elements in a list. What is the best way to do this? I wrote this code based on an apparently flawed understanding of how local variables in clojure work:
(defn reader-for [commands]
(with-local-vars
[stream commands]
(fn []
(let
[r (var-get stream)]
(if (empty? r)
nil
(let
[cur (first r)
_ (var-set stream (rest r))]
cur))))))
In this code I get:
#<CompilerException java.lang.IllegalStateException: Var null/null is unbound. (Chapel.clj:1)>
which seems to suggest that with-local-vars is dynamically scoped. Is that true? Is there any lexically scoped alternative? Thanks for any help.
If you require mutable state, use one of the clojure reference types:
user=> (defn reader-for [coll]
(let [a (atom coll)]
(fn []
(let [x (first #a)]
(swap! a next)
x))))
#'user/reader-for
user=> (def f (reader-for [1 2 3]))
#'user/f
user=> (f)
1
user=> (f)
2
user=> (f)
3
user=> (f)
nil
Also, let is for lexical scoping, binding is for dynamic scoping.
Edit: the thread-safe version as pointed out by Alan.
(defn reader-for [coll]
(let [r (ref coll)]
#(dosync
(let [x (first #r)]
(alter r next)
x))))
And just for fun, a thread-safe version with atoms (don't do this):
(defn reader-for [coll]
(let [a (atom coll)]
(fn []
(let [ret (atom nil)]
(swap! a (fn [[x & xs]]
(compare-and-set! ret nil x)
xs))
#ret))))

Does 'concat' break the laziness of 'line-seq'?

The following code appears to force line-seq to read 4 lines from file. Is this some kind of buffering mechanism? Do I need to use lazy-cat here? If so, how can I apply a macro to a sequence as if it were variadic arguments?
(defn char-seq [rdr]
(let [coll (line-seq rdr)]
(apply concat (map (fn [x] (println \,) x) coll))))
(def tmp (char-seq (clojure.contrib.io/reader file)))
;,
;,
;,
;,
#'user/tmp
Part of what you're seeing is due to apply, since it will need to realize as many args as needed by the function definition. E.g.:
user=> (defn foo [& args] nil)
#'user/foo
user=> (def bar (apply foo (iterate #(let [i (inc %)] (println i) i) 0)))
1
#'user/bar
user=> (defn foo [x & args] nil)
#'user/foo
user=> (def bar (apply foo (iterate #(let [i (inc %)] (println i) i) 0)))
1
2
#'user/bar
user=> (defn foo [x y & args] nil)
#'user/foo
user=> (def bar (apply foo (iterate #(let [i (inc %)] (println i) i) 0)))
1
2
3
#'user/bar