UPDATE: This post now contains obsolete information. Please read the new ClojureScript Quick Start instead
My previous post demonstrated a very manual series of steps for getting a sensible ClojureScript REPL setup going.
This post covers the easy way using the shiny 0.0-2665 release of ClojureScript. The only thing you need to go through this is to have Node.js and rlwrap (under OS X easily installed with brew) installed:
lein new mies hello-world
cd hello-world
We want the REPL to load as fast as possible so compile ClojureScript once and for all:
./scripts/compile_cljsc
Before we start our REPL let’s add a definition to the
hello-world.core namespace. Use your favorite text editor
to make it look like the following:
(ns hello-world.core)
(enable-console-print!)
;; ADD THIS
(defn foo [a b]
(+ a b))
(println "Hello world!")
Now let’s start a REPL:
./scripts/repl
It will take a few seconds the first time as we compile the standard library. It should be very fast to start on subsequent runs.
Once we have a REPL up and running let’s import something and try it:
ClojureScript:cljs.user> (require '[hello-world.core :refer [foo]])
Hello world!
ClojureScript:cljs.user> (foo 1 2)
3
Unlike Node.js out of the box we can import namespaces again and ClojureScript will recompile and reload:
Edit the hello-world.core namespace again with your text editor:
(ns hello-world.core)
(enable-console-print!)
(defn foo [a b]
(+ a b))
;; ADD THIS
(defn bar [a b]
(* a b))
(println "Hello world!")
Just press the up arrow at the REPL to get back to the previous
require statement and edit it to include :reload:
ClojureScript:cljs.user> (require '[hello-world.core :refer [foo]] :reload)
Hello world!
ClojureScript:cljs.user> hello-world.core
#js {:foo #<function foo(a,b){
return (a + b);
}>, :bar #<function bar(a,b){
return (a + b);
}>}
There’s our new definition as expected!
For the experienced ClojureScript developers I highly recommend poking
around at the provided scripts. As you’ll see with some investigation
the Node.js REPL and the dev build use the same output directory. This
means if you already have a build you can start a REPL pretty much
instantly by setting the REPLs :output-dir and :cache-analysis
values to be the same as your build.
Happy hacking!