Clojure
Share your thoughts in the 2024 State of Clojure Survey!

Programming at the REPL: Basic Usage

Evaluating Clojure expressions

Having started the REPL (as described in the previous chapter), you can now evaluate Clojure expressions by simply typing them into the REPL and pressing ENTER:

user=> (+ 2 3)
5
user=> (defn factorial [n]
(if (= n 0)
  1
  (* n (factorial (dec n)))))
#'user/factorial
user=> (factorial 10)
3628800
user=>

Under each expression, we see the result of evaluating the expression. This is what a REPL does: for each expression that we submit to it, the REPL Reads it, Evaluates it, then Prints the result, all of this in a Loop.

If you are in the process of learning Clojure, take some time to experiment at the REPL. The rapid feedback loop it provides makes for a very effective learning environment.

Although the above examples are very basic, you can run full-featured Clojure programs in this way. Clojure was designed so that its REPL environment provides the full power of the language: you could actually run any existing Clojure program simply by pasting the content of the source files in the right order into the REPL.

TIP: using an editor next to your REPL

Editing Clojure code inside the terminal window can get tedious; when that is the case, one simple trick is to write the code in a text editor of your choosing that has a syntax-aware Clojure mode, and copy and paste code from the editor to the REPL terminal window. Here’s an example of what this looks like (the editor used is Atom):

Editor next to CLI REPL

In the Enhancing your REPL workflow chapter of this guide, we will see more ergonomic configurations for using the REPL. However, this minimalist setup is sufficient for the scope of this tutorial, and is important for mastering the fundamentals.

The 2 flavors of printing

Consider the following evaluation:

user=> (println "Hello World")
Hello World
nil

This is strange: unlike the previous examples, it looks like evaluating the (println "Hello World") expression yielded 2 results: Hello World and nil.

This is because the println function prints its argument to the standard output but returns nil. Therefore, the 2 lines we see under our expression are very different in nature:

  • Hello World is a side effect of evaluating the expression (printing to standard output): the printing was done by our code.

  • nil is the result of evaluating the expression: the printing was done by the REPL.

Calling Clojure libs from the REPL

So far, we have only called code that we had defined manually at the REPL (for instance our factorial function defined above). But the REPL also lets you use pre-existing Clojure code, i.e Clojure libs.[1] Given a Clojure lib with namespace my.name.space, you can evaluate (require '[my.name.space]) to make that lib’s code loaded and available in the REPL.

Example: using clojure.string

For example, clojure.string is a lib bundled with Clojure for manipulating text. Let’s require clojure.string and call its clojure.string/upper-case function:

user=> (require '[clojure.string])
nil
user=> (clojure.string/upper-case "clojure")
"CLOJURE"

require also lets us define an alias for the clojure.string namespace, by adding an :as clause. This enables us to refer to names defined in the clojure.string namespace more concisely:

user=> (require '[clojure.string :as str])
nil
user=> (str/upper-case "clojure")
"CLOJURE"

Finally, if we’re very lazy and don’t want to type an alias at all, we can add a :refer clause:

user=> (require '[clojure.string :refer [upper-case]])
nil
user=> (upper-case "clojure")
"CLOJURE"

Looking up documentation

The REPL can also be used for looking up API documentation, using the clojure.repl lib. Evaluate the following expression at the REPL:

user=> (require '[clojure.repl :refer :all])
nil

This expression makes all the names defined in the clojure.repl namespace available in the REPL.

doc

You can print the API documentation of a given Var by evaluating (doc MY-VAR-NAME):

user=> (doc nil?)
-------------------------
clojure.core/nil?
([x])
  Returns true if x is nil, false otherwise.
nil
user=> (doc clojure.string/upper-case)
-------------------------
clojure.string/upper-case
([s])
  Converts string to all upper-case.
nil

source

You can also view the source code that was used to define a Var using source:

user=> (source some?)
(defn some?
  "Returns true if x is not nil, false otherwise."
  {:tag Boolean
   :added "1.6"
   :static true}
  [x] (not (nil? x)))
nil

dir

You can use dir to list the names of all the Vars defined a given namespace. Let’s do this with the clojure.string namespace:

user=> (dir clojure.string)
blank?
capitalize
ends-with?
escape
includes?
index-of
join
last-index-of
lower-case
re-quote-replacement
replace
replace-first
reverse
split
split-lines
starts-with?
trim
trim-newline
triml
trimr
upper-case
nil

As another example, let’s use dir to see what’s available in clojure.repl itself:

user=> (dir clojure.repl)
apropos
demunge
dir
dir-fn
doc
find-doc
pst
root-cause
set-break-handler!
source
source-fn
stack-element-str
thread-stopper
nil

We recognize the doc, source and dir operations we’ve used so far.

apropos

If you don’t exactly remember the name of some Var, you can search for it using apropos:

user=> (apropos "index")
(clojure.core/indexed? clojure.core/keep-indexed clojure.core/map-indexed clojure.string/index-of clojure.string/last-index-of)

apropos only searches Var names; you can search docstrings (the text that is printed by doc) using find-doc:

find-doc

user=> (find-doc "indexed")
-------------------------
clojure.core/contains?
([coll key])
 Returns true if key is present in the given collection, otherwise
 returns false.  Note that for numerically indexed collections like
 vectors and Java arrays, this tests if the numeric key is within the
 range of indexes. 'contains?' operates constant or logarithmic time;
 it will not perform a linear search for a value.  See also 'some'.
-------------------------
clojure.core/indexed?
([coll])
 Return true if coll implements Indexed, indicating efficient lookup by index
-------------------------
clojure.core/keep-indexed
([f] [f coll])
 Returns a lazy sequence of the non-nil results of (f index item). Note,
 this means false return values will be included.  f must be free of
 side-effects.  Returns a stateful transducer when no collection is
 provided.
-------------------------
clojure.core/map-indexed
([f] [f coll])
 Returns a lazy sequence consisting of the result of applying f to 0
 and the first item of coll, followed by applying f to 1 and the second
 item in coll, etc, until coll is exhausted. Thus function f should
 accept 2 arguments, index and item. Returns a stateful transducer when
 no collection is provided.
nil

Documentation is available only for libs that have been required.

For instance, if you have not required the clojure.set namespace, you won’t be able to search documentation for clojure.set/union. This is illustrated by this example REPL session:

clj
Clojure 1.10.0
user=> (doc clojure.set/union)
nil                             ;; no doc found
user=> (apropos "union")
()
user=> (require '[clojure.set]) ;; now we're requiring clojure.set
nil
user=> (doc clojure.set/union)
-------------------------
clojure.set/union
([] [s1] [s1 s2] [s1 s2 & sets])
  Return a set that is the union of the input sets
nil
user=> (apropos "union")
(clojure.set/union)
user=>

1. Note that what we call a Clojure lib is not necessarily a library: it can also be a source code file in your current project.