You have already seen some functions, such as count, conj, first, and rest. All the arithmetic we did had functions, as well: +, -, *, and /. What does it mean to be a function, though?
A function is an independent, discrete piece of code that takes in some values (called arguments) and returns other values. Let's see an example:
(defn triple
"Given a number, return 3 times that number."
[x]
(+ x x x))In this code:
defnspecifies that we are defining a function.tripleis the name of this function.- The string on the next line is the documentation for the function, which explains what the function does. This is optional.
[x]is the list of arguments. Here, we have one argument calledx.(+ x x x)is the body of the function. This is what executes when we use the function.
To use triple, we call the function, just like we've done with all the functions we've already used.
(triple 2) ;=> 6
(triple 3/2) ;=> 9/2
(triple 30.3) ;=> 90.9Functions can also take more than one argument. Let's make an average function that takes two numbers and gives us the average of those two numbers:
(defn average
[x y]
(/ (+ x y) 2))
(average 2 3) ;=> 5/2The str function can take any number of arguments, and it concatenates them together to make a string. Write a function called format-name that takes two arguments, first-name and last-name. This function should output the name like so: Last, First.
Function names are symbols, just like the symbols we used with def when assigning names to values.
Symbols have to begin with a non-numeric character, and they can contain alphanumeric characters, along with *, +, !, -, _, and ?. This flexibility is important with functions, as there are certain idioms we use.
Functions that return true or false--called predicates--usually end in ?:
zero?vector?empty?
There are some functions that are essential when using Clojure. The arithmetic functions and str have already been covered, and you need to know them. Let's look at some others.
You can use the function = to test the equality of two things. For example, here is a function called vegetarian? that determines whether a person is vegetarian or not:
(defn vegetarian?
[person]
(= :vegetarian (get person :dietary-restrictions)))The other comparison functions are >, >=, <, <=, and not=, and all but the last of these are used exclusively with numbers. Like all Clojure functions, the comparison functions are used as prefixes, so they can be a little tricky. Here's some examples:
(> 4 3) ;=> true
(>= 4 5) ;=> false
(< -1 1) ;=> true
(<= -1 -2) ;=> falseA large part of programming is manipulating strings. The most important string function in Clojure to remember is str, which concatenates all of its arguments into one string:
(str "Chocolate" ", " "strawberry" ", and " "vanilla")
;=> "Chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla"When we learned about data structures, we saw many functions that operated on those data structures, including:
countconjfirstrestnthassocdissocmerge
Some of the most powerful functions you can use with collections can take other functions as arguments. That's a complicated idea, so we'll learn more about that next.
One of the most magical things about Clojure--and many other programming languages--is that it can have functions that take other functions as arguments. That may not make sense at first, so let's look at an example.
(defn triple
[x]
(+ x x x))
(map triple [1 2 3]) ;=> [3 6 9]map is a function that takes another function, along with a collection. It then calls the function provided to it on each member of the collection and returns a new collection with the results of those function calls. This is a weird concept, but is at the core of Clojure and functional programming in general.
Let's look at another function that takes a function. This one is reduce, and it is used to turn collections into a single value.
(defn add
[x y]
(+ x y))
(reduce add [1 2 3]) ;=> 6This is what reduce does: it takes the first two members of the collection provided and calls the provided function with those members. It then calls the function again, using the result of the previous function call and the next member of the collection. It does this over and over until it reaches the end of the collection.
This is complicated, so let's illustrate it further.
(defn join-with-space
[string1 string2]
(str string1 " " string2))
(reduce join-with-space ["i" "like" "peanut" "butter" "and" "jelly"])
;=> "i like peanut butter and jelly"First, reduce calls join-with-space with "i" and "like", returning "i like". Then, in order, it makes the following function calls:
(join-with-space "i like" "peanut")(join-with-space "i like peanut" "butter")(join-with-space "i like peanut butter" "and")(join-with-space "i like peanut butter and" "jelly")
One more example of a function that uses a function, sort-by. It takes a function and sorts a sequence by applying that function to each element of the sequence.
(sort-by val > {:amy 3, :renee 5, :lisa 4})
;=> ([:renee 5] [:lisa 4] [:amy 3])So far, all the functions we've seen have names, like + and str and reduce. Functions don't have to have names, though, just like values don't have to have names. We call functions without names anonymous functions.
Before we go forward, you should understand that you can always feel free to name all of your functions. There is nothing wrong at all with doing that. However, you will see Clojure code with anonymous functions, so you should be able to understand it.
An anonymous function is created with fn, like so:
(fn [string1 string2] (str string1 " " string2))You might recognize that as the function we created before that we called join-with-space. fn works a lot like defn: we still have arguments listed as a vector and a function body. I didn't break the line in the anonymous function above, but you can, just like you can in a named function.
Why would you ever do this? Anonymous functions can be very useful when we have functions that take other functions. Let's take each of our examples above, but use anonymous functions instead of named functions.
(map (fn [x] (+ x x x)) [1 2 3]) ;=> [3 6 9]
(reduce (fn [x y] (+ x y)) [1 2 3]) ;=> 6
(reduce
(fn [s1 s2] (str s1 " " s2))
["i" "like" "peanut" "butter" "and" "jelly"])
;=> "i like peanut butter and jelly"Create a function called average that takes a vector of numbers and returns the average of those numbers.
Hint: you will need to use reduce and count.
Create a function called get-names that takes a vector of maps of people and returns a vector of their names.
Here is an example of how it should work:
(get-names [{:first "Margaret" :last "Atwood"}
{:first "Doris" :last "Lessing"}
{:first "Ursula" :last "Le Guin"}
{:first "Alice" :last "Munro"}])
;=> ["Margaret Atwood" "Doris Lessing" "Ursula Le Guin" "Alice Munro"]Sometimes when you are creating functions, you may want to assign names to values in order to reuse them or make your code more readable. Inside a function, however, you should not use def, like you would outside a function. You use a special form called let. Let's look at an example:
(defn spread
"Given a collection of numbers, return the difference between the largest and smallest number."
[numbers]
(let [largest (reduce max numbers)
smallest (reduce min numbers)]
(- largest smallest)))
(spread [10 7 3 -3 8]) ;=> 13This is the most complicated function we've seen yet, so let's go through each step. First, we have the name of the function, the documentation string, and the arguments, like in other functions.
Next, we see let. let takes a vector of alternating names and values. largest is the first name, and we assign the result of (reduce max numbers) to it. We assign the result of (reduce min numbers) to smallest.
After the vector of names and values, there is the body of the let. Just like a the body of a function, this executes and returns a value. Within the let, largest and smallest are defined.
Type the spread function into your instarepl and see how it evaluates.
Go back to the average function you created before and use let to make it easier to read.