[CLJ-1105] defrecord classes implement IPersistentCollection but not .empty, clojure.walk assumes collections support empty

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:42:00 -0500

Using clojure.walk functions fails surprisingly for data containing records defined with defrecord:

user=> (defrecord Foo [x])
user.Foo
user=> (def f (Foo. :x))
#'user/f
user=> (use 'clojure.walk)
nil
user=> (postwalk identity {:foo f})
UnsupportedOperationException Can't create empty: user.Foo user.Foo (NO_SOURCE_FILE:1)

This seems to be because clojure.walk/walk guards a call to (empty form) with a (coll? form) check. The check succeeds because records implement IPersistentCollection, but (empty form) throws an exception. This looks to me like a bug in clojure.walk (it should check records separately and either treat them as atomic or implement a way of walking through them) but perhaps it is a sign of some unclarity in the contract of collections.

Clojure JIRA

[CLJ-1105] defrecord classes implement IPersistentCollection but not .empty, clojure.walk assumes collections support empty