Can name munging be avoided for an interop call in ClojureScript? - clojurescript

In advanced compilation
(js/console.log "HELLO"
js/window.navigator.msSaveBlob
(.. js/window -navigator -msSaveBlob)
(aget js/window "navigator" "msSaveBlob")
js/console.log)
=>
HELLO undefined undefined function function
I think this means that js/console has some provided externs, but navigator does not (or at least not the ms specific stuff).
AFAIK the only way to avoid this is to create some externs? But this seems unnecessarily obtuse; why would you ever want js/anything to be munged?? Wouldn't it make make more sense to never munge js/anything interop?

System functions are not munged; only your own functions are. You probably want (.log js/console ...) ?
For de-munging your own functions, place ^:export between the defn and the function name to export its name intact.
Here is more information.
All see the section called "munging" here.

Related

Using an anonymous Js function in a go block

I'm attempting to do some timed animation in clojurescript/reagent and I'm trying to use core.async to achieve series of timed steps in order. I'm using a third party js react library, so, to call its functions I'm using the form (fn [] ^js (.function (.something #ref)). However putting this anonymous function inside the go block as follows doesn't work -
(go
(js/console.log "going")
(<! (timeout 3000))
(fn [] ^js (.function (.somedata #lib))
(js/console.log "landed")
)
This returns "going" and "landed" timed correctly and works when putting another console.log function in its place. However if you wrap this console.log in an Fn it no longer gets called. It is being called in the :on-click handler of a component. What have I missed?
That ^js there is unnecessary.
When you wrap something in (fn [] ...), that something is not called unless that fn is called. I.e. ((fn [] ...)). But then, you end up creating a function and calling it immediately, which is completely unnecessary.
So, assuming I understand you correctly, you can simply replace that (fn [] ^js ...) with (-> #lib .somedata .function).
On a side note, somedata sounds like it's just a field that has some data and not a function that needs to be called. If that's the case, use .-somedata instead of .somedata.
As mentioned by Eugene Pakhomov using (fn [] ...) only creates a function, it does not call it. Thus it it basically just elimnated entirely without doing anything.
Your motiviation here seems to get rid of the inference warning. So the underlying problem is that core.async is rather forgetful when in comes to type hints. If you ask me you shouldn't do any interop in go blocks at all and rather move it all out. Either via defn or local function outside the go.
(defn do-something []
(.function (.somedata ^js #lib)))
(go
(js/console.log "going")
(<! (timeout 3000))
(do-something)
(js/console.log "landed"))
(let [do-something (fn [] (.function (.somedata ^js #lib)))]
(go
(js/console.log "going")
(<! (timeout 3000))
(do-something)
(js/console.log "landed")))
Also, just a word of caution. Using core.async for this will substantially increase the amount of code generated for code in go blocks. If you really need to do is delay something use (js/setTimeout do-something 3000). Use go with caution, it'll easily generate 10x the code for some things than would normally be required.

CLJS: Setting a JS property to the result of calling a method on it

I'm looking to modify some existing text in a web app, which I'm accessing with expressions like this:
(.-innerHTML (.getElementById js/document "myElementId"))
What I specifically want to do is mutate that text via a search/replace:
(set! (^that whole thing) (.replace (^that whole thing) "old" "new"))
And I'd ideally like to do that without having to repeat the property-access expression. Is there any existing shortcut for this? I'm envisioning something like Raku's object .= method(args) shorthand for object = object.method(args); maybe a good clj name/pattern would be (.set! (access-expression) method & args). I can always write a macro, but was wondering if I'd overlooked something already there.
I was curious too and looked in the CLJS CheatSheet and they link to the CLJS Oops library which provides similarly looking functions.
It seems to be that the most robust solution would be to just rely on the Google Closure Library (which is always at hand) and use a combination of goog.object/get and goog.object/set (no need for a macro), something like:
(require 'goog.object)
(defn update-obj! [obj field f & args]
(let [old-val (goog.object/get obj field)
new-val (apply f old-val args)]
(goog.object/set obj field new-val)))
;; Example:
(update-obj! (.getElementById js/document "my-div") "innerHTML" (partial str "it works: "))
This should work in both development and optimized output.

Clojure/Clojurescript: Argument to resolve must be a quoted symbol

I'm attempting to use a string saved in a variable to call a function like so:
(defn update-product-list [] "Test")
(defn handle-state-change [action]
((resolve (symbol action))))
(handle-state-change "update-product-list")
However, this gives me the following error: Assert failed: Argument to resolve must be a quoted symbol
I've also tried changing the above line to:
((resolve (quote (symbol action))))
But this still gives an error. I also tried changing it just to:
((resolve 'action))
But this gives a different error I don't quite understand: js/action is shadowed by a local. I don't want to override the function just call it. Not sure where I'm going wrong. I've looked at a few examples, but can't see to pin it down.
ClojureScript supports :advanced optimization, in which Google Closure Compiler will rename, inline, or eliminate (unused) functions in order to implement minification. In short, the name of the function you want to look up will, in general, simply no longer exist under :advanced.
Because of this, ClojureScript's resolve is a compile-time facility (a macro requiring a literal quoted symbol).
If you are using :simple or self-hosted ClojureScript, more options are available to you because the support needed persists into runtime. For example Planck has a planck.core/resolve that behave's like Clojure's resolve. A similar approach is possible in Lumo, and similar facilities can be fashioned if using :simple.
In general though, given :advanced, if you need to map strings to a set of functions, you need to somehow arrange to have a static mapping constructed at compile time to support this (the set of functions must be known a priori, at compile time).
If you have a namespace (the name of which is statically known at compile time) which defines functions that need to be dynamically called via strings, you could consider making use of ns-publics:
cljs.user=> (ns foo.core)
foo.core=> (defn square [x] (* x x))
#'foo.core/square
foo.core=> (in-ns 'cljs.user)
nil
cljs.user=> (when-some [fn-var ((ns-publics 'foo.core) (symbol "square"))]
(fn-var 3))
9
This will work under :advanced. The mapping constructed by ns-publics is static; built at compile-time. If you have multiple namespaces that need such treatment, you could merge several calls to ns-publics to build a larger map.
The advantage of this approach is that the code involved is pretty short and requires little maintenance. The disadvantage is that it dumps all of the public vars of the namespace (foo.core in this example) into your generated code (and the generated code for vars is somewhat verbose). Another disadvantage is that you need to statically know the namespace(s) involved at compile time.
If you need to further minimize generated code size, you could just build / maintain a simple static map from string to function value as in
(def fns {"square" foo.core/square})
and use it appropriately, keeping it up to date as your codebase evolves.
Another option would be to mark the functions that you need to access using ^:export meta, and then to call those functions using JavaScript interop. For example if you define the function this way
(defn ^:export square [x] (* x x))
then you can use strings / interop to lookup the function and call it at runtime. Here's an example:
((goog.object/getValueByKeys js/window #js ["foo" "core" "square"]) 3)
The use of ^:export and :advanced is covered here. If you know that you are using :simple or less, then you can simply use JavaScript interop to call the functions of interest, without needn't to use ^:export.
Note that there is no general solution that would let you look up a function by name at runtime under :advanced without somehow putting some aspect of that function into your code at compile time. (In fact, if a function is not referenced in a way that Google Closure Compiler can statically, see, the function implementation will be completely eliminated as dead code.) In the above, ns-publics grabs all the vars for a namespace at compile time, rolling your own lookup map sets up static code to refer to the function value, and using ^:export statically arranges to make the name of the function persist into runtime.
You need to use it like this:
((resolve 'inc) 5)) => 6
or, deconstructed a bit:
(let [the-fn (resolve 'inc)]
(the-fn 7))
=> 8
If you have the function name as a string, use the symbol function to convert from string => symbol (from clojuredocs.org):
user=> ((-> "first" symbol resolve) [1 2 3])
1
And, never forget the Clojure CheatSheet!

How can I serialize functions at runtime in Clojure?

Is there a way to serialize functions at runtime in Clojure? I'd like to be able to send stateless (but not pure) functions over the wire in a serialized format (probably edn, but I'm open to anything).
For example...
If I run prn-str on a function, I don't get what I expected/wanted.
user=> (def fn1 (fn [x] (* x 2)))
#'user/fn1
user=> (def data {:test 1 :key "value"})
#'user/data
user=> (defn fn2 [x] (* x 2))
#'user/fn2
user=> (prn-str fn1)
"#object[user$fn1 0x28b9c6e2 \"user$fn1#28b9c6e2\"]\n"
user=> (prn-str data)
"{:test 1, :key \"value\"}\n"
user=> (prn-str fn2)
"#object[user$fn2 0x206c48f5 \"user$fn2#206c48f5\"]\n"
user=>
I would have wanted/expected something like this:
user=> (prn-str fn2)
"(fn [x] (* x 2))\n"
or, maybe,
user=> (prn-str fn2)
"(defn fn2 [x] (* x 2))\n"
You would have to use quote or ' to prevent evaluation and eval to force evaluation:
(def fn1 '(fn [x] (* x 2)))
(prn-str fn1) ;;=> "(fn [x] (* x 2))\n"
((eval fn1) 1) ;;=> 2
Flambo, a Clojure wrapper for Spark, uses the serializable-fn library to serialize functions (which Spark requires). Sparkling, another wrapper for Spark, uses native Clojure functions through this Java abstract class that implements the Java interface Serializable.
You have basically two choices:
pass source code (s-expressions stored as clojure data)
pass jar files and load them on the other side.
for the first option you save the source at the time the function is compiles (almost always when it is defined) and then pass the same source expression to the other computer and let it compile the same thing. so first you might make a vector of expressions:
(domain-functions '[(defn foo [x] x)
(defn bar [y] (inc y)]
then you can store this into a database and each client can pass it to read and then they will all have the same functions.
The second option depends on the fact that each time you define a function it produces a class file in the /target directory and then loads it. You can then syncronize this directory and load them on the other side. This approach is of course completely crazy, though people do crazy stuff around here. I recommend the first approach
And as a personal note:
I'm doing this now with datomic, and I have adopted the practice of putting the git-hash into the function name using a macro so I know absolutly for certain that when I call a function, I'm getting the same function I see in the editor. This brings peace of mind when running many instances that all pull from the same DB.
At some point it ceases to be Clojure, so the expectation that we can arbitrarily round trip from source to machine instructions and back is a little bit off.
We should be able to serialize a function to a byte array and send that across the wire though. I suspect you'd need to grab the function's java.lang.Class object and then pass that through a java.lang.instrument.ClassFileTransformer to get the bytes. Once you have those you can pass them through to the friendly java.lang.ClassLoader on the remote jvm.
You could use clojure.repl/source.
(with-out-str (source filter))
to get a string, or
(read-string (with-out-str (source filter)))
to get a clojure list.
There really isn't a good way, and for good reason simply shipping a function to another computer or storing it in a DB can cause lots of problems, not the least of which is that that function may require other functions that aren't on the other end.
A much better idea is to stick with data. Instead of writing the function, write the name of the function as a event, and then that even can be translated later by whatever is reading your data. Stick with data, that's the idiomatic way.

Is the Macro argument a function?

I am trying to determine whether a given argument within a macro is a function, something like
(defmacro call-special? [a b]
(if (ifn? a)
`(~a ~b)
`(-> ~b ~a)))
So that the following two calls would both generate "Hello World"
(call-special #(println % " World") "Hello")
(call-special (println " World") "Hello")
However, I can't figure out how to convert "a" into something that ifn? can understand. Any help is appreciated.
You might want to ask yourself why you want to define call-special? in this way. It doesn't seem particularly useful and doesn't even save you any typing - do you really need a macro to do this?
Having said that, if you are determined to make it work then one option would be to look inside a and see if it is a function definition:
(defmacro call-special? [a b]
(if (#{'fn 'fn*} (first a))
`(~a ~b)
`(-> ~b ~a)))
This works because #() function literals are expanded into a form as follows:
(macroexpand `#(println % " World"))
=> (fn* [p1__2609__2610__auto__]
(clojure.core/println p1__2609__2610__auto__ " World"))
I still think this solution is rather ugly and prone to failure once you start doing more complicated things (e.g. using nested macros to generate your functions)
First, a couple of points:
Macros are simply functions that receive as input [literals, symbols, or collections of literals and symbols], and output [literals, symbols, or collections of literals and symbols]. Arguments are never functions, so you could never directly check the function the symbol maps to.
(call-special #(println % " World") "Hello") contains reader macro code. Since reader macros are executed before regular macros, you should expand this before doing any more analysis. Do this by applying (read-string "(call-special #(println % \" World\") \"Hello\")") which becomes (call-special (fn* [p1__417#] (println p1__417# "world")) "Hello").
While generally speaking, it's not obvious when you would want to use something when you should probably use alternative methods, here's how I would approach it.
You'll need to call macroexpand-all on a. If the code eventually becomes a (fn*) form, then it is guaranteed to be a function. Then you can safely emit (~a ~b). If it macroexpands to eventually be a symbol, you can also emit (~a ~b). If the symbol wasn't a function, then an error would throw at runtime. Lastly, if it macroexpands into a list (a function call or special form call), like (println ...), then you can emit code that uses the thread macro ->.
You can also cover the cases such as when the form macroexpands into a data structure, but you haven't specified the desired behavior.
a in your macro is just a clojure list data structure (it is not a function yet). So basically you need to check whether the data structure a will result is a function or not when it is evaluated, which can be done like show below:
(defmacro call-special? [a b]
(if (or (= (first a) 'fn) (= (first a) 'fn*))
`(~a ~b)
`(-> ~b ~a)))
By checking whether the first element of the a is symbol fn* or fn
which is used to create functions.
This macro will only work for 2 cases: either you pass it a anonymous function or an expression.