November 3, 2015

Quick clj REPL with Boot

Quick way to experiment with Clojure Libraries

Here's a quick Pro Tip: want to quickly play around with a clojure or java library? No need to create an entire project or even a new directory. Just drop into a terminal and use the -d flag to start a repl with the dependencies you want.

For example, I was curious about working with currency. A quick google search returned "joda-money" as the first result. Here's the boot command I used to drop into a repl and start playing around:

boot -d org.joda/joda-money:0.10.0 repl

After that, you can play around:

boot.user=> (.toString (let [usd (org.joda.money.Money/parse "USD 25.83")]
   #_=>              (.convertedTo usd org.joda.money.CurrencyUnit/EUR 
   #_=>                            (BigDecimal. 0.91) 
   #_=>                            java.math.RoundingMode/UP)))
"EUR 23.51"

There you go. Any clojure library. Any java library. One boot command away. The possibilities are endless.

If you're using Leinigen, check out the leinigen plugin called lein-try that does the same thing.

Tags: clojure boot software tech