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Example of using ambient functions from self-hosted ClojureScript

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ambient

Example of using ambient functions from self-hosted ClojureScript.

We have a main.core namespace which provides an evaluate function, and this example will show how to call functions in an ambient / pre-compiled library.core namespace.

First, start up a browser REPL via

$ clj -m cljs.main

At the REPL, load our main namespace by evaluating

(require 'main.core)

Test that we can evaluate some code:

(main.core/evaluate "(+ 2 3)" prn)

This should print

{:ns cljs.user, :value 5}

Now, since main.core required library.core, we can call functions in that namespace. Evaluating this at the REPL will yield 11:

(library.core/my-inc 10)

Now, let's try to use this "ambient" function from self-hosted ClojureScript:

(main.core/evaluate "(library.core/my-inc 10)" prn)

You will see the following

WARNING: No such namespace: library.core, could not locate library/core.cljs, library/core.cljc, or JavaScript source providing "library.core" at line 1
WARNING: Use of undeclared Var library.core/my-inc at line 1
{:ns cljs.user, :value 11}

In short, what is going on is that even though library.core.my_inc is available in the JavaScript environment, and can indeed be called, producing the correct answer, you get warnings from the self-hosted compiler that it knows nothing about this namespace.

This is because the compiler analysis metadata is not in the main.core/state atom. (The self-hosted compiler has its own analysis state, held in that atom in the JavaScript environment, which is separate from the JVM compiler analysis state, held via Clojure in the Java environment.)

Note: If we instead had the source for library.core compiled by the self-hosted compiler (by perhaps by using main.core/evaluate to eval "(require 'library.core)", along with properly defining a cljs.js/*load-fn* that could retrieve this source, things would be good , and the compiler analysis metadata would be in main.core/state. But this example is about calling ambient / pre-compiled functions in library.core.

We can fix this by making use of cljs.js/load-analysis-cache! to load the analysis cache associated with the library.core namespace.

This example code embeds this analysis cache directly in the code by employing a macro that snatches the analysis cache from the JVM-based compiler. You can transport this analysis cache to the browser by any mechanism you desire; this just illustrates one way of simply embedding it directly in the shipping code (it's just data).

Go ahead and evaluate the following, just to see what the analysis cache for that namespace looks like:

(main.core/analyzer-state 'library.core)

If you call

(main.core/load-library-analysis-cache!)

this analysis cache will be loaded for use by the self-hosted compiler.

Now if you evaluate

(main.core/evaluate "(library.core/my-inc 10)" prn)

you won't see any warnings and this will be printed:

{:ns cljs.user, :value 11}

Furthermore, since the self-hosted compiler now has the analysis metadata for libraray.core, it can properly warn on arity errors, for example

(main.core/evaluate "(library.core/my-inc 10 12)" prn)

will cause this to be printed:

WARNING: Wrong number of args (2) passed to library.core/my-inc at line 1

The above illustrates what happens when you don't have the analyzer cache present for a namespace and how to fix it using cljs.js/load-analysis-cache!. If you know that you will always want to load the cache upon startup, you can simply things, making use of an optional argument to cljs.js/empty-state to load this cache at initialization time:

(defn init-state [state]
  (assoc-in state [:cljs.analyzer/namespaces 'library.core]
    (analyzer-state 'library.core)))

(def state (cljs.js/empty-state init-state))

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