Did you ever need to know the date and time 30 hours from now, because that is the time you could check into your plane to EuroClojure 2016 (and you're too lazy to do this in your head)? Or maybe you just saw an interesting Clojure library on Twitter or Reddit that you wanted to try out? How convenient would it be if you didn't have to create a project for such one off experiments.
There are several good options in Clojure for this. In this post let's assume we were going to try out clj-time, an excellent date and time library based on Joda Time. We'll show how to make a script that gives you almost instantaneous access to this library from the command line using Boot. And then we'll make it even faster using Planck.
For Leiningen, there is lein try. This is a plugin you can install into ~/.lein/profiles.clj. Then from the command line, just type lein try clj-time and we're good to go:
user=> (require '[clj-time.core :as t])
nil
user=> (require '[clj-time.local :as l])
nil
user=> (t/plus (l/local-now) (t/hours 30))
#object[org.joda.time.DateTime 0x3b3c5f5f "2016-10-25T16:53:58.154+02:00"]
For Boot this story seems even simpler as there is no need to install a plugin. Boot supports an option for including dependencies from the command line. Just type boot -d clj-time repl to get a REPL with the latest clj-time as a dependency:
$ boot -d clj-time repl
;;; output omitted
boot.user=> (require '[clj-time.core :as t])
;;; etc.
Note that Boot's repl task also supports the --eval option (-e for short), so we can already put the require on the command line:
$ boot -d clj-time repl -e "(require '[clj-time.core :as t]))"
Clojure 1.8.0
;;; output omitted
boot.user=> (t/plus (l/local-now) (t/hours 30))
#object[org.joda.time.DateTime 0x3489e3ab "2016-10-25T17:11:18.560+02:00"
```
How convenient this is. This allows us to write it as a script:
``` bash
#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo "Example: (t/plus (l/local-now) (t/hours 30))"
boot -d clj-time repl -e "(do (require '[clj-time.core :as t]) (require '[clj-time.local :as l]))"
Great to have handy for EuroClojure 2017!
Note that Boot allows us to load dependencies dynamically. Suppose you're experimenting but need another library. No need to restart the REPL. You can just type:
boot.user=> (set-env! :dependencies '[[org.clojure/core.async "RELEASE"]])
;;; output omitted
boot.user=> (require '[clojure.core.async :refer [go-loop]])
;;; continue experimenting
Wouldn't it be great if we could also experiment with ClojureScript libraries from a REPL? For example cljs-time? The easiest way to get here is Planck, which as of now runs only on OS X.
Planck can use jar files from ~/.m2, but you have to specify the full classpath. This is easily done with the help of Boot:
$ boot --dependencies org.clojars.micha/boot-cp # load with-cp task that helps exporting minimal classpath to file
--dependencies com.andrewmcveigh/cljs-time:"0.4.0" # load dependency you actually want to try
with-cp -w --file .classpath # write classpath to a file `.classpath`
The list of dependencies is now written to .classpath. You can re-use this file if your dependency hasn't changed.
Now we're ready to start the Planck REPL. It's fast! Even faster when you use the K option which caches compiled ClojureScript.
$ planck -Kc `cat .classpath` -e "(require '[cljs-time.core :as t])" -r
cljs.user=> (require '[cljs-time.local :as l])
cljs.user=> (str (-> (t/plus (t/now) (t/hours 30)) (t/to-default-time-zone)))
"20161025T220847"
Typing directly in a REPL only goes so far. For larger expressions it is more convenient to write in a text editor and then send the code to the REPL. For experiments started with Leiningen or Boot you can use an nREPL client. I use CIDER. For Planck you can use inf-clojure.
That's it. I hope this also helpful to beginners. Performing little Clojure experiments can grow into an addiction. Before you know it, you're soaked into your first Clojure project.
Published: 2016-10-19