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clj on Windows

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Alex Miller edited this page Aug 14, 2023 · 66 revisions

Currently, clj on Windows is in an alpha state. Please try it and provide feedback in the TDEPS jira or on #clj-on-windows room on Clojurians slack.

Install

Make sure PowerShell 5 (or later, include PowerShell Core) and .NET Core SDK 2.1+ or .NET Framework 4.5+ (or later) are installed. Also install Java 8+ and set JAVA_HOME in your environment variables. Then run:

Invoke-Expression (New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://github.com/clojure/brew-install/releases/latest/download/win-install.ps1')

or shorter

iwr -useb github.com/clojure/brew-install/releases/latest/download/win-install.ps1 | iex

Alternatively, download the latest version of the installer and run the downloaded copy:

When you run the installer, you will be prompted with several possible install locations:

PS Y:\Downloads> .\win-install.ps1
Downloading Clojure tools
WARNING: Clojure will install as a module in your PowerShell module path.

Possible install locations:
  1) \\Drive\Home\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
  2) C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
  3) C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\
Enter number of preferred install location: 1

Cleaning up existing install
Installing PowerShell module
Removing download
Clojure now installed. Use "clj -h" for help.

When choosing which location to install consider these tradeoffs:

  • #1 can be installed without admin privileges but will create a directory in Documents
  • #2 and 3 should probably be run only if you have admin privileges

Run

If you are using Windows PowerShell, invoke via clj or clojure. Do not use Powershell ISE.

If you need to run outside powershell, for example from the old Windows Command Prompt or Git Bash, try:

powershell -command clj

With command line argument:

powershell -command clj '-J"-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8"'

Escaping Quotes

Escaping quotes can be a bit tricky. Here is the same command in different shells:

PowerShell

clj -Sdeps '{:deps {viebel/klipse-repl {:mvn/version ""0.2.3""}}}' -m klipse-repl.main

Command Prompt

powershell -command clj -Sdeps '{:deps {viebel/klipse-repl {:mvn/version """"""0.2.3""""""}}}' -m klipse-repl.main

Git Bash

powershell -command 'clj -Sdeps "{:deps {viebel/klipse-repl {:mvn/version """"0.2.3""""}}}" -m klipse-repl.main'

Known issues

Install fails due to permission errors

You can use the following command to allow execution of external scripts for the current user:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser

Please make sure you understand the ramifications of this before running.

If the above does not work for you, you might want to try:

powershell.exe -noprofile -executionpolicy bypass -file .\win-install-1.10.3.1087.ps1

Install fails in zip expansion

This seems to happen sometimes with an error like:

New-Object : Exception calling ".ctor" with "3" argument(s): "End of Central Directory record could not be found."

This might be a corrupted download (need better info on this) - try running it again.

Quoted strings in -Sdeps argument not handled correctly

See: TDEPS-121

Long classpath

If your dependencies create a long classpath (~8k characters), you will exceed the Windows command-line length limit. The best option is probably to reduce the path to your local Maven repository, which is typically at $HOME/.m2/repository.

The local repository location to use can be overridden by creating or modifying the file at $HOME/.clojure/deps.edn:

{:mvn/local-repo "/path/to/repo"}

The local-repo directory is included in the path to every downloaded dependency so shortening that can have a significant impact on classpath line length.

See: TDEPS-120

Failing to download

If you get the following error:

 PS C:\Users\you> clj
java.exe : Downloading: org/clojure/clojure/1.10.1/clojure-1.10.1.pom from central 
 At C:\Users\you\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\ClojureTools\ClojureTools.psm1:304 char:5
+     & $JavaCmd -classpath $ToolsCp clojure.main -m clojure.tools.deps ...
+     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (Downloading: or...om from central:String) [], RemoteException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : NativeCommandError

You might be on Powershell ISE. Use Powershell instead.

Questions

We seek your feedback on the best way to integrate the Windows install into your development environment. What's important to you? Self-executing installer? Chocolatey package? Powershell module? Please let us know.

  • Scoop is another option that people seem to like -- see https://github.com/littleli/scoop-clojure as an example of how it could be packaged for Scoop (that depends on this wiki page existing and containing the latest version number for the Powershell installer!).

  • There is also a Clojure based launcher compiled with GraalVM as a native executable which works with cmd.exe as well as powershell -- see https://github.com/borkdude/deps.clj to get started with it, or just run the following from PowerShell: PowerShell -Command "iwr -useb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/borkdude/deps.clj/master/install.ps1 | iex" and you're ready to type deps at cmd.exe or the powershell prompt to use it. Remark how it's called deps and not clj or clojure, that means it is safe to try this one out on top of the default PowerShell based clj on windows command.

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