v2 of the patch is simply converts the patch to git format. I made sure that Mr. Duffy got proper attribution. I also took a stab at a simple log message. Any problems with the latter are mine, and I'm happy to fix it up if necessary.

This doesn't update the entire doc string. The expansion is updated, but the signature section isn't. Here's what shows up.

user=> (doc extend-type)
-------------------------
clojure.core/extend-type
([t & specs])
Macro
  A macro that expands into an extend call. Useful when you are
  supplying the definitions explicitly inline, extend-type
  automatically creates the maps required by extend.  Propagates the
  class as a type hint on the first argument of all fns.

  (extend-type MyType 
    Countable
      (cnt [c] ...)
    Foo
      (bar [x y] ...)
      (baz ([x] ...) ([x y & zs] ...)))

  expands into:

  (extend MyType
   Countable
     {:cnt (fn [c] ...)}
   Foo
     {:baz (fn ([x] ...) ([x y ...] ...))
      :bar (fn [x y] ...)})

This is very much related to http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1024.

NOTE: While varargs are not supported in protocol declarations, dynamic extension of a protocol via extend (extend-type, extend-protocol) does allow for varargs and also destructuring, cause the method impls are actually normal clojure functions.

So if a Foo protocol declares a (foo [this a b c]) method, you can extend/extend-type/extend-protocol it dynamically using (foo [this & more] (do-magick)) where `a b c` are conflated into the `more` parameter.

However, that doesn't work for method implementations defined by deftype, defrecord, and reify.

So with respect to the facts, the example in the docstring is actually correct, so I'm not sure if it should be changed. However, what's supported in which cases should be documented better as it is right now.

Corrected patch

Patch 0001-report-load-exception-with-file-and-line.diff fails build. Patch 0002-report-load-exception-with-file-and-line.diff applies, builds, and tests cleanly as of March 9, 2012. Hugo has signed a CA.

clj-939-report-load-exceptions-with-file-and-line-patch-v2.txt dated Oct 5 2012 is intended to be an update to Hugo Duncan's patch 0002-report-load-exceptions-with-file-and-line.diff dated Feb 25 2012. Because of Brandon Bloom's recently commited patch adding column numbers in addition to line numbers, this is not simply updating some lines of context, but I think it is correct. It would be good if Hugo could take a look at it and confirm.

Screened.

The error messages are better than what we had before. The line/column numbers are not particularly informative, probably because ns is a macro.

This patch doesn't change the reporting on any other (e.g. nested) exceptions? It looks like it might.

I just added clj-866-test-vars.patch (22/Oct/12 6:09PM).

I had to implement this hackishly in Leiningen a few days ago, so I'm very excited to get this functionality in clojure.test itself.

This patch adds a test-vars function that solves this problem (and is more general). You can test as many vars as you want with it, with fixtures. It works by grouping vars passed by their namespace and then running them all with appropriate fixtures applied. Being able to run a single test isn't the problem here, being able to run only specific tests is. If we wrote a function to run one test with fixtures but we actually needed to run several, just not all tests, we'd end up having to run once-fixtures more than once which is wasteful. I think test-vars is a good solution that solves both this problem and the one I just mentioned.

This is highly useful. Could you add a test to the patch?

1.2, 1.3 beta3

Modified doctoring to clarify the usage of :hierarchy.

New patch: '0001-CLJ-835-Refine-doc-string-for-defmulti-hierarchy-opt.patch' 10/May/12.

I've attached a new doc string patch in response to Andy Fingerhut's request posted here: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/clojure-dev/i7H82fJYL-U

Andy's request stated "Attached patch seems to have spelling mistakes, and perhaps could be worded more clearly."

I hope my new patch is an improvement upon what was there.

This patch supersedes '0001-Clarify-docstring-for-defmulti.patch' from 14/Sep/11.

This is a million times better than what was there before, but (who knew!?) it could be better. A couple points of contention:

• The order under the :hierarchy section seems off. I would start with an overview of what a hierarchy is including a definition of the global hierarchy map (it's mentioned, but glossed over). I'd then move on to an example impl. Finally, I'd then add the discussion starting "Multimethods expect..." immediately followed by an example.

• In the isa? example it would be great to show the return value.

• You mention that the hierarchy should be supplied as a reference, which is correct, however you talk about #'. The link between e.g. var and #' could be a bit more explicit. Maybe the sentence about #' could be parenthetical?

• It's ok to finish with a very small example of its use in defmethod, in fact a simple example specifying methods for ::shape and ::circle would clarify the intent nicely.

Please leave examples out of docs strings. Use precise language.

Requires that patch on CLJ-782 be applied first.

Applies on master as of commit 66a88de9408e93cf2b0d73382e662624a54c6c86

still considering when to incorporate this

v2 of the patch applies to master as of commit eccde24c7fb63679f00c64b3c70c03956f0ce2c3

Patch clj-771-move-unchecked-casts-patch-v3.txt dated Sep 6 2012 is the same as Alexander Taggart's patch move-unchecked-casts.patch except that it has been updated to apply cleanly to latest Clojure master.

Patch clj-771-move-unchecked-casts-patch-v4.txt dated Oct 20 2012 is the same as Alexander Taggart's patch move-unchecked-casts.patch except that it has been updated to apply cleanly to latest Clojure master.

The patch clj-771-move-unchecked-casts-patch-v4.txt applies cleanly to latest master and passes all tests. Rich marked this ticket as Incomplete on Dec 9 2011 with the comment "still considering when to incorporate this" above. Is it reasonable to change it back to Vetted or Screened so it can be considered again, perhaps after Release 1.5 is made?

Patch clj-771-move-unchecked-casts-patch-v5.txt dated Feb 12 2013 is the same as Alexander Taggart's patch move-unchecked-casts.patch except that it has been updated to apply cleanly to latest Clojure master.

See CLJ-678.

Some more details from Alexandar Taggart: This is not a duplicate of CLJ-678. CLJ-766 was created precisely due to the fact the the behavior of *-array is not consistent with the post-678 version of into-array.

I'd like to bump up this issue, since it'd be great if all the (xxx-array) factory functions have the same expected behavior (i.e. not throw an exception, especially not if the values are in range). The attached patch is changing the behaviour for byte-array & short-array to the same pattern used as for int/long/float/double and therefore will not throw an exception for valid (even if overflown) numbers. You can find more discussion in this thread on:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups=#!topic/clojure/KyQrbph-zqo

Voting on a ticket (click the "Vote" link under the "People" heading while viewing the ticket on JIRA) may help draw attention to it, too.

Karsten, patches should be in the format created by the "git format-patch" command as described in the instructions under the heading "Development" on this page: http://dev.clojure.org/display/design/JIRA+workflow

Sorry Andy, I used Atlassian SourceTree to create the patch and assumed it's in standard git format... I've removed the old one and attach a (hopefully) properly formatted one. Apologies, contributing-beginners-luck!

While investigating this, I noticed that long-array coerces across type, e.g.

(seq (long-array [1.0]))
=> (1)

Is this what we want? I don't think so.

I agree that all the numeric array constructors should work the same way, but I am not sue we should adopt long-array's approach, which allows coercion from float to integer types.

I think the patch approach is valid. However, the patch does not cover the same problem in the 2-arity version of byte_array and short_array (when a size is supplied). Please update the patch to include a fix in the 2-arity version of byte_array and short_array and tests for the same. Ex: (byte-array 1 [1]).

Also, there is a whitespace issue in the patch - please just use spaces!

/Users/alex/work/code/clojure/.git/rebase-apply/patch:24: space before tab in indent.
	    	ret[i] = ((Number)s.first()).byteValue();
warning: 1 line adds whitespace errors.

Re Stuart's comments, I don't think that's in the scope of this ticket or solution.

Sending back to Karsten for the requested patch updates.

Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/445
Attachments:
fixbug445.diff - https://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/documents/b6gDSUZOur36b9eJe5cbCb/download/b6gDSUZOur36b9eJe5cbCb

ataggart said: [file:b6gDSUZOur36b9eJe5cbCb]

ataggart said: Also fixes #446.

The patch is causing a test failure

[java] Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: 
     More than one matching method found: equiv, compiling:(clojure/pprint/cl_format.clj:428)

Can you take a look?

The failing test happens when trying to find the correct equiv for signature (Number, long). Is the compiler wrong to propose this signature, or is the resolution method wrong in not having an answer? (It thinks two signatures are tied: (Object, long) and (Number, Number).)

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: More than one matching method found: equiv, compiling:(clojure/pprint/cl_format.clj:428)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6062)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5827)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6050)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.access$100(Compiler.java:35)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$LetExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:5492)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6055)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6043)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6043)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5827)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$IfExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:2372)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6055)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6043)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5827)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$InvokeExpr.parse(Compiler.java:3277)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6057)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5827)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$BodyExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:5231)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$LetExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:5527)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6055)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6043)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5827)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$BodyExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:5231)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6055)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5827)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$IfExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:2385)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6055)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5827)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$BodyExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:5231)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$LetExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:5527)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6055)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6043)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5827)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$IfExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:2385)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6055)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5827)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$BodyExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:5231)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$LetExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:5527)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6055)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6043)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5827)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$BodyExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:5231)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$FnMethod.parse(Compiler.java:4667)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$FnExpr.parse(Compiler.java:3397)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6053)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6043)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.access$100(Compiler.java:35)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$DefExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:480)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6055)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5866)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:5827)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.eval(Compiler.java:6114)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.load(Compiler.java:6545)
	at clojure.lang.RT.loadResourceScript(RT.java:340)
	at clojure.lang.RT.loadResourceScript(RT.java:331)
	at clojure.lang.RT.load(RT.java:409)
	at clojure.lang.RT.load(RT.java:381)
	at clojure.core$load$fn__1427.invoke(core.clj:5308)
	at clojure.core$load.doInvoke(core.clj:5307)
	at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:409)
	at clojure.pprint$eval3969.invoke(pprint.clj:46)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.eval(Compiler.java:6110)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.load(Compiler.java:6545)
	at clojure.lang.RT.loadResourceScript(RT.java:340)
	at clojure.lang.RT.loadResourceScript(RT.java:331)
	at clojure.lang.RT.load(RT.java:409)
	at clojure.lang.RT.load(RT.java:381)
	at clojure.core$load$fn__1427.invoke(core.clj:5308)
	at clojure.core$load.doInvoke(core.clj:5307)
	at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:409)
	at clojure.core$load_one.invoke(core.clj:5132)
	at clojure.core$load_lib.doInvoke(core.clj:5169)
	at clojure.lang.RestFn.applyTo(RestFn.java:143)
	at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor11.invoke(Unknown Source)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
	at clojure.lang.Reflector.invokeMatchingMethod(Reflector.java:77)
	at clojure.lang.Reflector.invokeInstanceMethod(Reflector.java:28)
	at clojure.core$apply.invoke(core.clj:602)
	at clojure.core$load_libs.doInvoke(core.clj:5203)
	at clojure.lang.RestFn.applyTo(RestFn.java:138)
	at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor11.invoke(Unknown Source)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
	at clojure.lang.Reflector.invokeMatchingMethod(Reflector.java:77)
	at clojure.lang.Reflector.invokeInstanceMethod(Reflector.java:28)
	at clojure.core$apply.invoke(core.clj:604)
	at clojure.core$use.doInvoke(core.clj:5283)
	at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:409)
	at clojure.main$repl.doInvoke(main.clj:196)
	at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:422)
	at clojure.main$repl_opt.invoke(main.clj:267)
	at clojure.main$main.doInvoke(main.clj:362)
	at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:409)
	at clojure.lang.Var.invoke(Var.java:401)
	at clojure.lang.AFn.applyToHelper(AFn.java:163)
	at clojure.lang.Var.applyTo(Var.java:518)
	at clojure.main.main(main.java:37)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: More than one matching method found: equiv
	at clojure.lang.Reflector.getMatchingParams(Reflector.java:639)
	at clojure.lang.Reflector.getMatchingParams(Reflector.java:578)
	at clojure.lang.Reflector.getMatchingMethod(Reflector.java:569)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$StaticMethodExpr.<init>(Compiler.java:1439)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler$HostExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:896)
	at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:6055)
	... 115 more

In working on implementing support for vararg methods, I found a number of flaws with the previous solutions. Please disregard them.

I've attached a single patch (reflector-compiler-numbers.diff) which is a rather substantial overhaul of the Reflector code, with some enhancements to the Compiler and Numbers code.

The patch notes:

• Moved reflection functionality from Compiler to Reflector.
• Reflector supports finding overloaded methods by widening conversion, boxing conversion, and casting.
• During compilation Reflector attempts to find best wildcard match.
• Reflector refers to *unchecked-math* when reflectively invoking methods and constructors.
• Both Reflector and Compiler support variable arity java methods and constructor; backwards compatible with passing an array or nil in the vararg slot.
• Added more informative error messages to Reflector.
• Added tests to clojure.test-clojure.reflector.
• Altered overloaded functions of clojure.lang.Numbers to service Object/double/long params; fixes some ambiguity issues and avoids unnecessary boxing in some cases.
• Patch closes issues 380, 440, 445, 666, and possibly 259 (not enough detail provided).

Updated patch to fix a bug where a concrete class with multiple identical Methods (e.g., one from an interface, another from an abstract class) would result in ambiguity. Now resolved by arbitrary selection (this is what the original code did as well albeit not explicitly).

Updated patch to work with latest master branch.

patch appears to be missing test file clojure/test_clojure/reflector.clj.

Bit by git.

Patch corrected to contain clojure.test-clojure.reflector.

Rich: I verified that the patch applied but reviewed only briefly, knowing you will want to go over this one closely.

After applying this patch, I am getting method missing errors:

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: clojure.lang.Numbers.lt(JLjava/lang/Object;)

but only when using compiled code, e.g. the same code works in the REPL and then fails after compilation. Haven't been able to isolate an example that I can share here yet, but hoping this will cause someone to have an "a, hah" moment...

The patch now contains only the minimal changes needed to support widening conversion. Cleanup of Numbers overloads, etc., can wait until this patch gets applied. The vararg support is in a separate patch on CLJ-440.

Please test patch

FYI: Patch applies cleanly on master and all tests pass as of 4/21 (2011)

This work is too big to take into the 1.3 beta right now. We'll revisit for a future release.

To better facilitate understanding of the changes, I've broken them up into two patches, each with a number of isolable, incremental commits:

reorg-reflector.patch: Moves the reflection/invocation code from Compiler to Reflector, and eliminates redundant code. The result is a single code base for resolving methods/constructors, which will allow for altering that mechanism without excess external coordination. This contains no behaviour changes.

prim-conversion.patch: Depends on the above. Alters the method/constructor resolution process:

• more consistent with java resolution, especially when calling pre-1.5 APIs
• adds support for widening conversion of primitive numerics of the same category (this is more strict than java, and more clojuresque)
• adds support for wildcard matches at compile-time (i.e., you don't need to type-hint every arg to avoid reflection).

This also provides a base to add further features, e.g., CLJ-666.

It's documented in situ, but here are the conversion rules that the reflector uses to find methods:

1. By Type:
   • object to ancestor type
   • primitive to a wider primitive of the same numeric category (new)
2. Boxing:
   • boxed number to its primitive
   • boxed number to a wider primitive of the same numeric category (new for Short and Byte args)
   • primitive to its boxed value
   • primitive to Number or Object (new)
3. Casting:
   • long to int
   • double to float

prim-conversion-update-1.patch applies to current master.

Created CLJ-792 for the reflector reorg.

prim-conversion-update-1.patch does not apply as of f5bcf64.

Is CLJ-792 now a prerequisite of this ticket?

Yes, after the original patch was deemed "too big".

After this much time with no action from TPTB, feel free to kill both tickets.

Again, not sure if this is any help, but I've tested starting from Clojure head as of Feb 20, 2012, applying clj-792-reorg-reflector-patch2.txt attached to CLJ-792, and then applying clj-445-prim-conversion-update-2-patch.txt attached to this ticket, and the result compiles and passes all but 2 tests. I don't know whether those failures are easy to fix or not, or whether issues may have been introduced with these patches.

Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/415

alexdmiller said: A simple example I tried for illustration:

user=> (let [a 1 b 2] (assert (= a b)))
#<CompilerException java.lang.AssertionError: Assert failed: (= a b)
 a : 1
 b : 2

fogus said: Of course it's weird if you do something like:

(let [x 1 y 2 z 3 a 1 b 2 c 3] (assert (= x y)))
java.lang.AssertionError: Assert failed: (= x y)
 x : 1
 y : 2
 z : 3
 a : 1
 b : 2
 c : 3
 (NO_SOURCE_FILE:0)
</code></pre>

So maybe it could be slightly changed to:
<pre><code>(defmacro assert
  "Evaluates expr and throws an exception if it does not evaluate to logical true."
  {:added "1.0"}
  [x]
  (when *assert*
    (let [bindings (local-bindings &env)]
      `(when-not ~x
         (let [sep#  (System/getProperty "line.separator")
               form# '~x]
           (throw (AssertionError. (apply str "Assert failed: " (pr-str form#) sep#
                                          (map (fn [[k# v#]] 
                                                 (when (some #{k#} form#) 
                                                   (str "\t" k# " : " v# sep#))) 
                                               ~bindings)))))))))
</code></pre>

So that. now it's just:
<pre><code>(let [x 1 y 2 z 3 a 1 b 2 c 3] (assert (= x y)))
java.lang.AssertionError: Assert failed: (= x y)
 x : 1
 y : 2
 (NO_SOURCE_FILE:0)

:f

fogus said: Hmmm, but that fails entirely for: (let [x 1 y 2 z 3 a 1 b 2 c 3] (assert (= [x y] [a c]))). So maybe it's better just to print all of the locals unless you really want to get complicated.
:f

jawolfe said: See also some comments in:

http://groups.google.com/group/clojure-dev/browse_frm/thread/68d49cd7eb4a4899/9afc6be4d3f8ae27?lnk=gst&q=assert#9afc6be4d3f8ae27

Plus one more suggestion to add to the mix: in addition to / instead of printing the locals, how about saving them somewhere. For example, the var assert-bindings could be bound to the map of locals. This way you don't run afoul of infinite/very large sequences, and allow the user to do more detailed interrogation of the bad values (especially useful when some of the locals print opaquely).

stuart.sierra said: Another approach, which I wil willingly donate:
http://github.com/stuartsierra/lazytest/blob/master/src/main/clojure/lazytest/expect.clj

There's one more tweak to fogus's last comment, which I'm actually using. You need to flatten the quoted form before you can use 'some' to check whether the local was used in the form:

(defmacro assert
  "Evaluates expr and throws an exception if it does not evaluate to logical true."
  {:added "1.0"}
  [x]
  (when *assert*
    (let [bindings (local-bindings &env)]
      `(when-not ~x
         (let [sep#  (System/getProperty "line.separator")
               form# '~x]
           (throw (AssertionError. (apply str "Assert failed: " (pr-str form#) sep#
                                          (map (fn [[k# v#]] 
                                                 (when (some #{k#} (flatten form#)) 
                                                   (str "\t" k# " : " v# sep#))) 
                                               ~bindings)))))))))

I am holding off on this until we have more solidity around http://dev.clojure.org/display/design/Error+Handling. (Considering, for instance, having all exceptions thrown from Clojure provide access to locals.)

When my pipe dream fades I will come back and screen this before the next release.

Why try to guess what someone wants to do with the locals (or any other context, for that matter) when you can specify a callback (see below). This would have been useful last week when I had an assertion that failed only on the CI box, where no debugger is available.

Rich, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I still think this is a good idea. Debuggers are not always available, and this is an example of where a Lisp is intrinsically capable of providing better information than can be had in other environments. If you want a patch for the code below please mark waiting on me, otherwise please decline this ticket so I stop looking at it.

(def ^:dynamic *assert-handler* nil)

(defn ^{:private true} local-bindings
  "Produces a map of the names of local bindings to their values."
  [env]
  (let [symbols (map key env)]
    (zipmap (map (fn [sym] `(quote ~sym)) symbols) symbols)))

(defmacro assert
  [x]
  (when *assert*
    (let [bindings (local-bindings &env)]
      `(when-not ~x
         (let [sep#  (System/getProperty "line.separator")
               form# '~x]
           (if *assert-handler*
             (*assert-handler* form# ~bindings)
             (throw (AssertionError. (apply str "Assert failed: " (pr-str form#) sep#
                                            (map (fn [[k# v#]] 
                                                   (when (some #{k#} (flatten form#)) 
                                                     (str "\t" k# " : " v# sep#))) 
                                                 ~bindings))))))))))

A slight improvement I made in my own version of this code: flatten does not affect set literals. So if you do (assert (some #{x} [a b c d])) the value of x will not be printed. Here's a modified flatten that does the job:

(defn symbols [sexp]
  "Returns just the symbols from the expression, including those
   inside literals (sets, maps, lists, vectors)."
  (distinct (filter symbol? (tree-seq coll? seq sexp))))

Attaching git format patch clj-415-assert-prints-locals-v1.txt of Stuart Halloway's version of this idea. I'm not advocating it over the other variations, just getting a file attached to the JIRA ticket.

Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/373

I've attached my code from the g.group thread in the form of a patch, in case it's sufficient. (Thanks to abedra for the gentle kick in the pants.)

Looks to me like the patch is misusing if-let, e.g.

(when-let [[k & mk] []] "Doh!") 
=> Doh!

Please correct, and add tests for nil and [] keys (at least).

I will write some tests and correct this.

I'm sorry to report that my good intentions of wanting to help clear some of the project backlog has created more work by way of further questions. I'd also like to clarify the desired new behaviours for the test cases.

Heinz proposed that an empty key sequence will not create a new nil key in the returned map.
He also suggested that the following behaviour changes be made (compare old and new* behaviours):

 
(update-in {1 2} [] (constantly {2 3}))
{nil {2 3}, 1 2}

(update-in* {1 2} [] (constantly {2 3}))
{2 3}

(update-in {1 2} [] assoc  1 3)
{nil {1 3}, 1 2}

(update-in* {1 2} [] assoc  1 3)
{1 3}

Chouser also added that nil keys should be honoured, as before:

 
(update-in* {nil 2} [nil] (constantly 3))
{nil 3}

I've added a variety of tests to cover the existing behaviour and would like to confirm that the above is all that's required for new behaviour.

The patch from November 2010 didn't work, but I tweaked it with a when-let as Stuart suggested and placed a check for an empty sequence of keys before the when-let block; because essentially, the primary behaviour change boils down to simply handling an empty sequence of keys, in addition to the existing behaviours.

I'm not entirely convinced that these changes are a good thing, but at least there's now something concrete for discussion. Please have a look at what is there. The good news is that at least there are some tests covering update-in now.

clj-373-alter-behavior-of-update-in-with-empty-key-patch2.txt dated May 24, 2012 supersedes patch 0001-CLJ-373Alter-behaviour-of-update-in-with-empty-key.patch dated May 9, 2012. It makes no changes to the contents of the patch except in the lines of context that have changed since the earlier patch was created. It applies cleanly to the latest master whereas the earlier patch no longer does. Builds and passes tests with Oracle/Apple JDK 1.6 on Mac OS X 10.6.8.

This patch creates a new error mode highlighted by the following:

(update-in {:a 1} [] inc)

; ClassCastException clojure.lang.PersistentArrayMap cannot be cast to java.lang.Number

The reason is that the code that executes in the event that the keys are empty (or nil) blindly assumes that the function given can be applied to the map itself. This is no problem in the case of assoc and the like, but clearly not for inc and many other useful functions.

The old behavior was to throw an NPE and if any code relies on that fact is now broken. Maybe this is not a problem, but I'm kicking it back to get a little more discussion and to request that whatever the ultimate fix happens to be, its behavioral changes and error modes are noted in the docstring for update-in.

I vote for changing `update-in` to support empty key vectors.

Because I think "(apply f m args)" in case of an empty vector is the natural continuation of the usual behavior of update-in:

• update-in with 2 keys the second level map is updated
• update-in with 1 key the first level map (child of given map) is updated
• update-in with no key the given map (zero level) is updated.

Otherwise, you will always have to wrap update-in in something like the following when the keys vector is computed:

(if (seq keys) (apply update-in m keys f args) (apply f m args))

To Fogus' last post: (update-in {:a {:b 1}} [:a] inc) fails similar and is not handled with a special exception.

Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/346
Attachments:
0347-pprint-update-2.diff - https://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/documents/diLxv6y4Sr35GVeJe5cbLr/download/diLxv6y4Sr35GVeJe5cbLr

stu said: [file:diLxv6y4Sr35GVeJe5cbLr]

stu said: The second patch includes the first, and adds another test.

tomfaulhaber said: This patch was attached to the wrong bug. It should be attached to bug #347. There is no fix for this bug yet.

Is this current?

Tom, this patch doesn't apply, and I am not sure why. Can you take a look?

Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/322
Attachments:
aot-transitivity-option-compat-322.diff - https://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/documents/aI7Eu-HeGr35ImeJe5cbLA/download/aI7Eu-HeGr35ImeJe5cbLA
aot-transitivity-option-322.diff - https://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/documents/aIWFiWHeGr35ImeJe5cbLA/download/aIWFiWHeGr35ImeJe5cbLA

hlship said: I'd like to reinforce this. I've been doing research on Clojure build tools for an upcoming talk and all of them (Maven, Leiningen, Gradle) have the same problem: the AOT compile extends from the desired namespaces (such as one containing a :gen-class) to every reached namespace. This is going to cause a real ugliness when application A uses libraries B and C that both depend on library D (such as clojure-contrib) and B and C are thus both bloated with duplicate, unwanted AOT compiled classes from the library D.

cemerick said: This behaviour is an implementation detail of Clojure's AOT compilation process, and is orthogonal to any particular build tooling.

I am working on a patch that would provide a mechanism for such tooling to disable this default behaviour.

cemerick said: A first cut of a change to address this issue is here (caution, work in progress!):

http://github.com/cemerick/clojure/commit/6f14e0790c0d283a7e44056adf1bb3f36bb16e0e

This makes available a new recognized system property, clojure.compiler.transitive, which defaults to true. When set/bound to false (i.e. -Dclojure.compiler.transitive=false when using clojure.lang.Compile), only the first loaded file (either the ns named in the call to compile or each of the namespaces named as arguments to clojure.lang.Compile) will have classfiles written to disk.

This means that this compilation invocation:

java -cp <your classpath> -Dclojure.compiler.transitive=false clojure.lang.Compile com.bar com.baz

will generate classfiles only for com.bar and com.baz, but not for any of the namespaces or other files they load, require, or use.

The only shortcoming of this WIP patch is that classfiles are still generated for proxy and gen-class classes defined outside of the explicitly-named namespaces. What I thought was a solution for this ended up breaking the loading of generated interfaces (as produced by defprotocol, etc).

I'll take a second look at this before the end of the week, but wanted to get this out there so as to get any comments people might have.

technomancy said: Looks good, but I'm having trouble getting it to work. I tried compiling from master of Chas's fork on github, but I still got the all the .class files generated with -Dclojure.compiler.transitive=false. It could be a quirk of the way I'm using ant to fork off processes though. Is it possible to set it using System/setProperty, or must it be given as a property on the command-line?

cemerick said: Bah, that's just bad documentation. :-/

The system property is only provided by clojure.lang.Compile; the value of it drives the binding of clojure.core/transitive-compile, which has a root binding of true.

You should be able to configure the transitivity the same way you configure compile-path (system prop to clojure.lang.Compile or a direct binding when at the REPL, etc).

If not, ping me in irc or elsewhere.

meikelbrandmeyer said: I think, excluding parts 'load'ed is a little strong. I have some namespaces which load several parts from different files, but which belong to the same namespace. The most prominent example of such a case is clojure.core itself. I'm find with stopping require and use, but load is a bit too much, I'd say.

technomancy said: Chas: Thanks; will give that a go.

Meikel: Do people actually use load outside of clojure.core? I thought it was only used there because clojure.core is a "special" namespace where you want more vars to be available than can reasonably fit in a single file. Splitting up a namespace into several files is quite unadvisable otherwise.

technomancy said: I can confirm that this works for me modulo the proxy/gen-class issue that Chas mentioned. I would love to see this in Clojure 1.2; it would really clean up a lot of build-related issues.

meikelbrandmeyer said: I used it several times and this is the first time, I hear that it is unadvisable to do so. Even with a lower number of Vars in the namespace (c.c is here certainly exceptional) and might be of use to split several "sections" of code which belong to the same namespace but have different functionality. Whether to use a big comment in the source to indicate the section or split things into subfiles is a matter of taste. But it's a perfectly reasonable thing todo.

Another use case, where I use this (and c.c.lazy-xml, IIRC) is to conditionally load code depending on whether a dependency is available or not. Eg. vimclojure uses c.c.pprint and c.c.stacktrace/clj-stacktrace transparently depending on their availability.

There are perfectly legal uses of load. I don't see any "unadvisable" here.

cemerick said: Thanks, Meikel; I had forgotten about that use case, as I don't use load directly myself at all. I probably wouldn't say it's inadvisable, just mostly unnecessary. In any case, that's a good catch. It complicates things a bit, but we'll see what happens. I'm going to take another whack at resolving the proxy/gen-class case and narrowing the impact of nontransitivity to use and require later tonight.

I agree wholeheartedly that this should be in 1.2, assuming the technical bits work out. This has been an irritant for quite a long time. I actually believe that nontransitivity should be the default – no one wants or expects to have classfiles show up for dependencies show up when a project is AOT-compiled. I think the only negative impact would be whoever still fiddles with compilation at the REPL, and doesn't use maven or lein – and even then, it's just a matter of binding another var.

meikelbrandmeyer said: Then the var should be added to the default bindings in the clojure.main repl. Then it's set!-able like the other vars ��� warn-on-reflection and friends.

cemerick said: This is looking pretty good (still WIP):

http://github.com/cemerick/clojure/commit/fedfb022ecef420a932b3d69c182ec7a8e5960a6

Thank you again for mentioning load, Meikel: it was very helpful in resolving the proxy/gen-class issue as well.

Just a single data point: the jar produced by the medium-sized project I've been using for testing the changes has shrunk from 1.8MB to less than 1MB. That's not the only reason this is a good change, but it's certainly a nice side-effect.

cemerick said: [file:aIWFiWHeGr35ImeJe5cbLA]

cemerick said: [file:aI7Eu-HeGr35ImeJe5cbLA]

cemerick said: Patched attached. The compat one retains the current default behaviour [*transitive-compile* true], the other changes the default so that transitivity is a non-default option. At least of those I've spoken to about this, the latter is preferred.

The user impact of changing the default would be:

1. The result of compiling from the REPL will change. Getting back current behaviour would require adding a [*transitive-compile* true] binding to the existing bindings one must set when compiling from the REPL.
2. The same as #1 goes for those scripting AOT compilation via clojure.lang.Compile as well (whether by shell scripts, ant, etc).
3. Those using lein, clojure-maven-plugin, gradle, and others will likely have a new option provided by those tools, and perhaps a different default than the language's. I suspect those using such tools would much prefer a change from the default behaviour in any case.

hlship said: Just had a brain-storm:

How about an option to support transitive compilation, but only if the Clojure source file being compiled as a file: URL (i.e., its a local file on the file system, not a file stored in a JAR). That would make it easier to use compilation on the local project without transitively compiling imported libraries, such as clojure-contrib.

So transitive-compile should be a keyword, not a boolean, with values :all (for 1.1 behavior), :none (to compile only the exact specified namespaces) or :local (to compile transitively, but only for local files, not source files from JARs).

cemerick said: (Crossposted to the clojure-dev list)

I thought about this some, and I don't think that's a good idea, at least for now. I'm uncomfortable with semantics changing depending upon where code is being loaded from – which, depending upon a tool's implementation, might be undefined. E.g. if the com.foo.bar ns is available in source form in one directory, but as classes from a jar, and classpaths aren't being constructed in a stable fashion, then the results of compilation will change.

If we decide that special treatment depending upon the source of code is warranted in the future, that's a fairly straightforward thing to do w.r.t. the API – we could have :all and :local as you suggest, with nil representing :none.

stu said: Rich is not comfortable enough with the implementation complexity of this patch (e.g. the guard clause for proxies and gen-class) to slide this in as a minor fix under the wire for 1.2.

Better to live with the pain we know a little longer than ship something we don't have enough experience with to be confident.

Updated patch to cleanly apply to HEAD and address issues raised by screening done by Cosmin Stejerean. Also includes proper tests.

Note: this patch's tests require the fix for CLJ-432!

the "-resolved" patch resolves a conflict in main.clj

Several questions:

1. I am getting an ant build error: "/Users/stuart/repos/clojure/build.xml:137: java.io.FileNotFoundException: Could not locate clojure/test_clojure/aot/nontransitive__init.class or clojure/test_clojure/aot/nontransitive.clj on classpath:"
2. It feels icky to have a method named writeClassFile that, under some circumstances, does not write a class file, but instead loads it via a dynamic loader. Maybe this is just a naming issue.
3. Are there any other ways to accomplish the goals of load-level? Or, taking the other side, if we are going to have a load-level, are there other possible consumers who might have different needs?
4. (Minor) Why the use :only idiom instead of just require?

An alternative approach: patch write-classes-1.diff.gz

From my forked branch

What this patch does:

• Keeps 'compile' and 'compile-files' exactly the same
• Adds 'compile-write-classes' to write .class files for specifically named classes
• Minor compiler changes to support this

This approach was prompted by the following observations:

• Java interop is the dominant reason for needing .class files
• Things other than namespaces can generate classes for Java interop:
  • deftype/defrecord
  • defprotocol
  • gen-class/gen-interface
• For library releases, we want to control which .class files are emitted on a per-class basis, not per-namespace
• Some legitimate uses of AOT compilation will want transitive compilation
  • Pre-compiling an entire application before release

S. Halloway: My apologies, I didn't know you had commented. I thought that, having assigned this issue to myself, I'd be notified of updates.

FWIW, I aim to review your comments and SS' approach over the weekend.

S. Halloway:

1. Certainly shouldn't happen. AFAIK, others have screened the patch, presumably with a successful build.
2. Agreed; given the approach, I think it's just a bad name.
3. Yes, I think S. Sierra's is one. See my next comment.
4. Because the :use form was already there. I've actually been using that form of :use more and more; I've found that easier than occasionally having to shuffle around specs between :use and :require. I think I'm aping Chris Houser in that regard.

I think S. Sierra's approach is fundamentally superior what I offered. I have two suggestions: one slight perspective change (which implies no change in the actual implementation), and an idea for an even simpler approach (at least from a user perspective), in that order.

While interop is the driving requirement behind AOT, I absolutely do not want to have to keep an updated enumeration of all of the classes resulting from each and every defrecord et al. usages in my pom.xml/project.clj (and I wouldn't wish the task of ferreting those usages and their resulting classnames on any build tool author).

Right now, *compile-write-classes* is documented to be a set of classname strings, but could just as easily be any other function. *compile-write-classes* should be documented to accept any predicate function (renamed to e.g. *compile-write-class?*?). There's no reason why it shouldn't be bound to, e.g. #(re-matches #"foo\.bar\.[\w_]+$" %) if I know that all my records are defined in the foo.bar namespace.

To go along with that, I think some package/classname-globbing utilities along with corresponding options to clojure.lang.Compile would be most welcome. Classname munging rules are not exactly obvious, and it'd be good to make things a little easier for users in this regard.

Another alternative

If there's a closed set of forms that generate classes that one might reasonably be interested in having in a build result (outside of use cases for pervasive AOT), then why not have a simple option that only those forms utilize? gen-class and gen-interface already do this, but reusing the all-or-nothing *compile-files* binding; if they keyed off of a binding that implied a diminished scope (e.g. *compile-interop-forms* – which would be true if *compile-files* were true), then they'd do exactly what we wanted. Extending this approach to deftype (and therefore defrecord) should be straightforward.

An implementation of this would probably be somewhat more complicated than S. Sierra's patch, though not as complex as my original stab at the problem (i.e. no *load-level*). On the plus side:

1. No additional configuration for users or implementation work for build tool authors, aside from the addition of the boolean diminished-scope AOT option
2. Class file generation would remain opaque from a build process standpoint
3. Future/other class-generating forms (there are a few people futzing with ASM independently, etc) can make local decisions about whether or not to participate in interop-centric classfile generation. This might be particularly helpful if a given form emits multiple classes, making the determination of a classname-based filter fn less straightforward.

I can see wanting to further restrict AOT to specific classnames in certain circumstances, in which case the above and S. Sierra's patch might be complimentary.

I like the idea of *compile-interop-forms*. But is it always possible to determine what an "interop form" is? I think it is, I'm just not sure.

I'm also in favor of compile-interop-forms. As far as determining, how about sticking metadata on the var?

(defmacro ^{:interop-form true} deftype ...)

Summary and design discussion on wiki at http://dev.clojure.org/display/design/Transitive+AOT+Compilation

New attachment compile-interop-1.patch has new approach: Add a third possible value for *compile-files*. True and false keep their original meanings, but :interop causes only interop-related forms to be written out as .class files. "Interop forms" are gen-class, gen-interface, deftype, defrecord, defprotocol, and definterface.

Pros:

• doesn't change existing behavior
• handles common case for non-transitive AOT (interop)
• minimal changes to the compiler

Cons:

• not flexible

Just realized my patch doesn't solve the transitive compilation problem. If library A loads library B, then compiling interop forms in A will also emit interop .class files in B.

It's disappointing to see an important issue like this still unresolved after 2.5 years. This is a real pain for us. We have a large closed source project where shipping source is not an option. This forces us to manage the AOT'ing of dependencies due to the hard dependency on protocol interfaces introduced by transitive AOT compilation (see https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/clojure-dev/r3A1JOIiwVU).

Paul, do you have a suggestion for which of the approaches described in comments here, or on the wiki page http://dev.clojure.org/display/design/Transitive+AOT+Compilation would be preferable solution for you? Or perhaps even a patch that implements your preferred approach?

Andy,

I'm now consulting with Paudi's organization, so I think I can speak for him (I'm now the default buildmeister).

I like Stuart's :interop idea, but that is somewhat orthogonal to our needs.

I return to what I would like; compilation would compile specific namespaces; dependencies of those namespaces would not be compiled.

To be honest, I'm still a little hung up on the interop forms: especially defprotocol and friends; from a cursory glance, it appears that todays AOT compilation will compile the protocol into a Java class, then compile the namespace that references the protocol with the assumption that the protocol's Java class is available. When we use build rules to only package our namespace's class files into the output JAR, the code fails with a NoClassDefFoundError because the protocol really needs to be recompiled, at runtime compilation, into an in-memory Java class.

Obviously, supporting this correctly will be a challenge; the compiled bytecode for our namespace would ideally:
1) check to see if the Java class already exists and use it if so
2) load the necessary namespaces so as to force the creation of the Java class

I can imagine any number of ways to juggle things to make this work, so I won't suggest a specific implementation.

In the meantime, our workaround is to create a "stub" module as part of our build; it simply requires in the necessary namespaces (for example, org.clojure:core.cache); this forces an AOT compile of the dependencies and we have a special rule to package such dependencies in the stub module's output JAR. This may not be a scalable problem, and it is expensive to identify what 3rd party dependencies require this treatment.

I am marking this incomplete because there does not yet seem to be plurality, much less consensus or unanimity, on approach.

Personally I am in favor of a solution based on a predicate that gets handed the class name and compiled bits, and then can choose whether to write the class. Pretty close to Stuart Sierra's compile-write-classes. Might be possible to flow more information than classname to the predicate.

Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/291
Attachments:
fixbug291.diff - https://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/documents/dfNhoS2Cir3543eJe5cbLA/download/dfNhoS2Cir3543eJe5cbLA

bhurt said: Before this bug gets marked as invalid as well, let me point out that the problem here is that (take-nth 0 any-list) is a meaningless construction- the only question is what to do when this happens. IMHO, the correct behavior is to throw an exception.

ataggart said: [file:dfNhoS2Cir3543eJe5cbLA]: throws IllegalArgumentException on negative step size

Does calling (take-nth 0 ...) cause the problem, or only realizing the result?

I'm not seeing a problem. Calling take-nth and even partially consuming the seq it returns works fine for me:

(take 5 (take-nth 0 [1 2 3]))
;=> (1 1 1 1 1)

Note however that it is returning an infinite lazy seq. The example in the issue description seems to include essentially (doall <infinite-lazy-seq>) which does blow the heap:

(doall (range))

This issue still strikes me as invalid.

(take-nth 0 ...) returns an infinite sequence of the first item:

(take 12 (take-nth 0 [1 2 3]))
=> (1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1)

Is something other than this happening on Solaris?

Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/250
Attachments:
add-clojure-debug-flag.patch - https://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/documents/aUWn50c64r35E-eJe5aVNr/download/aUWn50c64r35E-eJe5aVNr
assert-report-locals.patch - https://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/documents/aUWqLSc64r35E-eJe5aVNr/download/aUWqLSc64r35E-eJe5aVNr

Ignore the old patches. Considering the following implementation, please review and then move ticket to waiting on Stu:

1. RT will check system property "clojure.debug", default to false
2. property will set the root binding for the current *assert*, plus a new *debug* flag. (Debug builds can and will drive other things than just asserts.)
3. does Compile.java need to push *assert* or *debug* as thread local bindings, or can they be root-bound only when compiling clojure?
4. will add *debug* binding to clojure.main/with-bindings. Anywhere else?
5. build.xml should not have to change – system properties will flow through (and build.xml may not be around much longer anyway)
6. once we agree on the approach, I will ping maven plugin and lein owners so that they flow the setting through
7. better assertion messages will be a separate ticket
8. what is the interaction between *debug* and *unchecked-math*? Change checks to (and *unchecked-math* (not *debug*))}?

#3 - root bound only
#4 - should not be in with-bindings for same reason as #3 - we don't want people to set! *debug* nor *assert*
#8 - yes, wrapping that in a helper fn

#6 - my biggest reservation is that this isn't yet informed by maven best practices

System properties can be passed through Maven, so I do not anticipate this being a problem.

However, I would prefer *assert* to remain true by default.

SS is correct about this approach not posing any issue for Maven. In addition, the build could easily be set up to always emit two jars, one "normal", one "debug".

I'd suggest that, while clojure.debug might have broad effect, additional properties should be available to provide fine-grained control over each of the additional "debug"-related parameterizations that might become available in the future.

I'd like to raise a couple of potentially tangential concerns (after now thinking about assertions for a bit in the above context), some or all of which may simply be a result of my lack of understanding in various areas.

Looking at where assert is used in core.clj (only two places AFAICT: validating arguments to derive and checking pre- and post-conditions in fn), it would seem unwise to make it false by default. i.e. non-Named values would be able to get into hierarchies, and pre- and post-conditions would simply be ignored.

It's my understanding that assertions (talking here of the JVM construct, from which Clojure reuses AssertionError) should not be used to validate arguments to public API functions, or used to validate any aspect of a function's normal operation (i.e. "where not to use assertions"). That would imply that derive should throw IllegalArugmentException when necessary, and fn pre- and post-conditions should perhaps throw IllegalStateException – or, in any case, something other than AssertionError via assert. This would match up far better with most functions in core using assert-args rather than assert, the former throwing IllegalArgumentException rather than AssertionError.

That leads me to the question: is assert (and *assert*) intended to be a Clojure construct, or a quasi-interop form?

If the former, then it can roughly have whatever semantics we want, but then it seems like it should not be throwing AssertionError.

If the latter, then AssertionError is appropriate on the JVM, but then we need to take care that assertions can be enabled and disabled at runtime (without having to switch around different builds of Clojure), ideally using the host-defined switches (e.g. -ea and friends) and likely not anything like *assert*. I don't know if this is possible or practical at this point (I presume this would require nontrivial compiler changes).

Hopefully the above is not water under the bridge at this point. Thank you in advance for your forbearance.

Thanks for the useful input Chas. Nothing is concluded yet. I think we should step back and look at the objective here, before moving forward with a solution. Being a dynamic language, there are many things we might want to validate about our programs, where the cost of checking is something we are unwilling to pay in production.

Being a macro, assert has the nice property that, should *assert* not be true during compilation, it generates nil, no conditional test at all. Thus right now it is more like static conditional compilation.

Java assert does have runtime toggle-ability, via -ea as you say. I haven't looked at the bytecode generated for Java asserts, but it might be possible for Clojure assert to do something similar, if the runtime overhead is negligible. It is quite likely that HotSpot has special code for eliding the assertion bytecode given a single check of some flag. I'm just not sure that flag is Class.desiredAssertionStatus.

Whether this turns into changes in assert or pre/post conditions, best practices etc is orthogonal and derived. Currently we don't have a facility to run without the checks. We need to choose between making them disappear during compilation (debug build) or runtime (track -ea) or both. Then we can look at how that is reflected in assert/pre-post and re-examine existing use of both. The "where not to use assertions" doc deals with them categorically, but in not considering their cost, seems unrealistic IMO.

I'd appreciate it if someone could look into how assert is generated and optimized by Java itself.

Bytecode issues continue to be above my pay grade, unfortunately…

A few additional thoughts in response that you may or may not be juggling already:

assert being a macro makes total sense for what it's doing. Trouble is, "compile-time" is a tricky concept in Clojure: there's code-loading-time, AOT-compile-time, and transitively-AOT-compile-time. Given that, it's entirely possible for an application deployed to a production environment that contains a patchwork of code or no code produced by assert usages in various libraries and namespaces depending upon when those libs and ns' were loaded, AOT-compiled, or their dependents AOT-compiled, and the value of *assert* at each of those times. Of course, this is the case for all such macros whose results are dependent upon context-dependent state (I think this was a big issue with clojure.contrib.logging, making it only usable with log4j for a while).

What's really attractive about the JVM assertion mechanism is that it can be parameterized for a given runtime on a per-package basis, if desired. Reimplementing that concept so that assert can be *ns*-sensitive seems like it'd be straightforward, but the compile-time complexity already mentioned remains, and the idea of having two independently-controlled assertion facilities doesn't sound fun.

I know nearly nothing about the CLR, but it would appear that it doesn't provide for anything like runtime-controllable assertions.

The best (dated) evidence I could find says that the compiler sets a special class static final field $assertionsDisabled based on the return of desiredAssertionStatus. HotSpot doesn't do anything special with this, dead code elimination simply makes it go away. The code indeed compiles this way:

11: getstatic #6; //Field $assertionsDisabled:Z
14: ifne 33
17: lload_1
18: lconst_0
19: lcmp
20: ifeq 33
23: new #7; //class java/lang/AssertionError
26: dup
27: ldc #8; //String X should be zero
29: invokespecial #9; //Method java/lang/AssertionError."<init>":(Ljava/lang/Object;)V
32: athrow

Even if we were 100% sure that assertion removal was total, I would still vote for a separate Clojure-level switch, for the following reasons:

1. I have a real and pressing need to disable some assertions, and I don't need the Java interop at all. Arguably others will be in the same boat.
2. there will be multiple debugging facilities over time, and having a top-level debug switch is convenient for Clojure users.
3. Java dis/enabling via command line flags is still possible as a separate feature. We could add this later as a (small) breaking change to our assert, or have a separate java-assert interop form. I am on the fence about which way to go here.
4. I believe it is perfectly fine to throw an AssertionError from a non-Java-assertion-form. We don't believe in a world of a static exception hierarchy, and an assertion in production is a critical failure no matter what you call it. Even Scala does it http://daily-scala.blogspot.com/2010/03/assert-require-assume.html

Rich: awaiting your blessing to move forward on this.

The compiler sets $assertionsDisabled when, in static init code? Is there special support in the classloader for it? Is there a link to the best dated evidence you found?

1. Yes, in static init code
2. There is no special support in the classloader, per Brian Goetz (private correspondence) last week. But dead code elimination is great: "The run-time cost of disabled assertions should indeed be zero for compiled code"

Link: Google "java assert shirazi". (Not posting link because I can't tell in 10 secs whether it includes my session information.)

Is there anything new on this issue? I also look for a convenient way to disable assertions in production.

Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/211
Attachments:
destructuring-fns.diff - https://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/documents/aHWQ_W06Kr3O89eJe5afGb/download/aHWQ_W06Kr3O89eJe5afGb

chouser@n01se.net said: [file:aHWQ_W06Kr3O89eJe5afGb]: [PATCH] Support -> and ->> in destructuring forms.

cgrand said: I think the current patch suffers from the problem described here http://groups.google.com/group/clojure-dev/msg/80ba7fad2ff04708 too.

richhickey said: so, don't use syntax-quote, just use clojure.core/->

chouser@n01se.net said: Only -> and ->> are actually legal here anyway – if you've locally bound foo to -> there's not really any good reason to think (fn [(foo inc a)] a) should work. And if you've redefined -> or ->> to mean something else in your ns, do we need to catch that at compile time, or is it okay to emit the rearranged code and see what happens?

In short, would '#{> ->> clojure.core/> clojure.core/->>} be sufficient?

cgrand said: Only -> and ->> are legal here but what if they are aliased or shadowed? Instead of testing the symboil per se I would check, if:

• the symbol is not in &env
• the symbol resolve to #'clojure.core/> or #'clojure.core/>>

(when-not (&env (first b)) (#{#'clojure.core/-> #'clojure.core/->>} (resolve (first b))))

but it requires to change destructure's sig to pass the env around

Rich: Are you assigned to this by accident? If so, please deassign yourself.

Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/84
Attachments:
genclass-allow-unresolved-classname.patch - https://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/documents/cWS6Aww30r3RbzeJe5afGb/download/cWS6Aww30r3RbzeJe5afGb

oranenj said: [file:cWS6Aww30r3RbzeJe5afGb]: on comment 1

richhickey said: Updating tickets (#8, #19, #30, #31, #126, #17, #42, #47, #50, #61, #64, #69, #71, #77, #79, #84, #87, #89, #96, #99, #103, #107, #112, #113, #114, #115, #118, #119, #121, #122, #124)

The approach take in the initial patch (delaying resolution of symbols into classes) is fine: gen-class makes no promise about when this happens, and the dynamic approach feels more consistent with Clojure. I think the proposed (but not implemented) use of string/symbol to control when class names are resolved is a bad idea: magical and not implied by the types.

Needed:

• update the patch to apply cleanly
• consider whether totype could live in clojure.reflect.java. (Beware load order dependencies.)

Wow, 18-month-old patch, back to haunt me for Halloway'een

So what does it mean that the assignee is Rich, but it's waiting on me?

I am using Approval = Incomplete plus Waiting On = Someone to let submitters know that there is feedback waiting, and that they can move the ticket forward by acting on it. The distinction is opportunity to contribute (something has been provided to let you move forward) vs. expectation of contribution.

Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/69
Attachments:
keyset.patch - https://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/documents/dKgE6mw3Gr3O2PeJe5afGb/download/dKgE6mw3Gr3O2PeJe5afGb

oranenj said: [file:dKgE6mw3Gr3O2PeJe5afGb]

richhickey said: Updating tickets (#8, #19, #30, #31, #126, #17, #42, #47, #50, #61, #64, #69, #71, #77, #79, #84, #87, #89, #96, #99, #103, #107, #112, #113, #114, #115, #118, #119, #121, #122, #124)

patch not in correct format

Converted from http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/5

Please see the attached patch which produces a (hopefully more clear) error message as shown below (given the broken code shown in the original bug report):

Clojure 1.4.0-master-SNAPSHOT
user=> (let [x 42 y 43] (+ x y))
85
user=> (let [[x y] {}] x)
UnsupportedOperationException left side of binding must be a symbol (found a PersistentVector instead).  clojure.lang.Compiler.checkLet (Compiler.java:6545)
user=>

In addition, this patch checks the argument of (let) as shown below:

user=> (let 42)
UnsupportedOperationException argument to (let)  must be a vector (found a Long instead).  clojure.lang.Compiler.checkLet (Compiler.java:6553)

Patch produced by doing git diff against commit ba930d95fc (master branch).

Sorry, this patch is wrong: it assumes that the left side of the binding is wrong - the [x y] in :

(let [[x y] {}] x)

because [x y] is a vector, when in fact, the left side is fine (per http://clojure.org/special_forms#let : "Clojure supports abstract structural binding, often called destructuring, in let binding lists".)

So it's the right side (the {}) that needs to be checked and flagged as erroneous, not the [x y].

Add patch better-error-for-let-vector-map-binding

This produces the following:

(let [[x y] {}] x)
Exception map binding to vector is not supported

There are other cases that are not handled by this though — like binding vector to a set

user=> (let [[x y] #{}] x)
UnsupportedOperationException nth not supported on this type: PersistentHashSet

Wondering if it might be better to try convert the map to a seq to support? Although this might be another issue.

Thoughts?

This seems too specific. Is this issue indicative of a larger problem that should be addressed? Even if this is the only case where bindings produce poor error messages, all the cases described above should be addressed in the patch.

Unfortunately, realized that this still does not cover the nested destructuring cases. Coming to the conclusion, that my approach above is not going to work for this.

File: clj-5-destructure-error.diff

Added support for nested destructuring errors

let [[[x1 y1][x2 y2]] [[1 2] {}]]
;=> UnsupportedOperationException let cannot destructure class clojure.lang.PersistentArrayMap.