Calling clojure from java

Question

Most of the top google hits for \"calling clojure from java\" are outdated and recommend using clojure.lang.RT to compile the source code. Could you help with a

Answer 1

As of Clojure 1.6.0, there is a new preferred way to load and invoke Clojure functions. This method is now preferred to calling RT directly (and supersedes many of the other answers here). The javadoc is here - the main entry point is clojure.java.api.Clojure.

To lookup and call a Clojure function:

IFn plus = Clojure.var("clojure.core", "+");
plus.invoke(1, 2);

Functions in clojure.core are automatically loaded. Other namespaces can be loaded via require:

IFn require = Clojure.var("clojure.core", "require");
require.invoke(Clojure.read("clojure.set"));

IFns can be passed to higher order functions, e.g. the example below passes plus to read:

IFn map = Clojure.var("clojure.core", "map");
IFn inc = Clojure.var("clojure.core", "inc");
map.invoke(inc, Clojure.read("[1 2 3]"));

Most IFns in Clojure refer to functions. A few, however, refer to non-function data values. To access these, use deref instead of fn:

IFn printLength = Clojure.var("clojure.core", "*print-length*");
IFn deref = Clojure.var("clojure.core", "deref");
deref.invoke(printLength);

Sometimes (if using some other part of the Clojure runtime), you may need to ensure that the Clojure runtime is properly initialized - calling a method on the Clojure class is sufficient for this purpose. If you do not need to call a method on Clojure, then simply causing the class to load is sufficient (in the past there has been a similar recommendation to load the RT class; this is now preferred):

Class.forName("clojure.java.api.Clojure")