Use a clojure macro to automatically create getters and setters inside a reify call

Question

I am trying to implement a huge Java interface with numerous (~50) getter and setter methods (some with irregular names). I thought it would be nice to use a macro to reduce the amount of code. So instead of

(def data (atom {:x nil}))
(reify HugeInterface
  (getX [this] (:x @data))
  (setX [this v] (swap! data assoc :x v))) 

I want to be able to write

(def data (atom {:x nil}))
(reify HugeInterface
  (set-and-get getX setX :x))

Is this set-and-get macro (or something similar) possible? I haven't been able to make it work.

Kaja

Answer 1

(Updated with a second approach -- see below the second horizontal rule -- as well as some explanatory remarks re: the first one.)

---

I wonder if this might be a step in the right direction:

(defmacro reify-from-maps [iface implicits-map emit-map & ms]
  `(reify ~iface
     ~@(apply concat
         (for [[mname & args :as m] ms]
           (if-let [emit ((keyword mname) emit-map)]
             (apply emit implicits-map args)
             [m])))))

(def emit-atom-g&ss
  {:set-and-get (fn [implicits-map gname sname k]
                  [`(~gname [~'this] (~k @~(:atom-name implicits-map)))
                   `(~sname [~'this ~'v]
                      (swap! ~(:atom-name implicits-map) assoc ~k ~'v))])})

(defmacro atom-bean [iface a & ms]
  `(reify-from-maps ~iface {:atom-name ~a} ~emit-atom-g&ss ~@ms))

NB. that the atom-bean macro passes the actual compile-time value of emit-atom-g&ss on to reify-from-maps. Once a particular atom-bean form is compiled, any subsequent changes to emit-atom-g&ss have no effect on the behaviour of the created object.

An example macroexpansion from the REPL (with some line breaks and indentation added for clarity):

user> (-> '(atom-bean HugeInterface data
             (set-and-get setX getX :x))
          macroexpand-1
          macroexpand-1)
(clojure.core/reify HugeInterface
  (setX [this] (:x (clojure.core/deref data)))
  (getX [this v] (clojure.core/swap! data clojure.core/assoc :x v)))

Two macroexpand-1s are necessary, because atom-bean is a macro which expands to a further macro call. macroexpand would not be particularly useful, as it would expand this all the way to a call to reify*, the implementation detail behind reify.

The idea here is that you can supply an emit-map like emit-atom-g&ss above, keyed by keywords whose names (in symbolic form) will trigger magic method generation in reify-from-maps calls. The magic is performed by the functions stored as functions in the given emit-map; the arguments to the functions are a map of "implicits" (basically any and all information which should be accessible to all method definitions in a reify-from-maps form, like the name of the atom in this particular case) followed by whichever arguments were given to the "magic method specifier" in the reify-from-maps form. As mentioned above, reify-from-maps needs to see an actual keyword -> function map, not its symbolic name; so, it's only really usable with literal maps, inside other macros or with help of eval.

Normal method definitions can still be included and will be treated as in a regular reify form, provided keys matching their names do not occur in the emit-map. The emit functions must return seqables (e.g. vectors) of method definitions in the format expected by reify: in this way, the case with multiple method definitions returned for one "magic method specifier" is relatively simple. If the iface argument were replaced with ifaces and ~iface with ~@ifaces in reify-from-maps' body, multiple interfaces could be specified for implementation.

---

Here's another approach, possibly easier to reason about:

(defn compile-atom-bean-converter [ifaces get-set-map]
  (eval
   (let [asym (gensym)]
     `(fn [~asym]
        (reify ~@ifaces
          ~@(apply concat
              (for [[k [g s]] get-set-map]
                [`(~g [~'this] (~k @~asym))
                 `(~s [~'this ~'v]
                      (swap! ~asym assoc ~k ~'v))])))))))

This calls on the compiler at runtime, which is somewhat expensive, but only needs to be done once per set of interfaces to be implemented. The result is a function which takes an atom as an argument and reifies a wrapper around the atom implementing the given interfaces with getters and setters as specified in the get-set-map argument. (Written this way, this is less flexible than the previous approach, but most of the code above could be reused here.)

Here's a sample interface and a getter/setter map:

(definterface IFunky
  (getFoo [])
  (^void setFoo [v])
  (getFunkyBar [])
  (^void setWeirdBar [v]))

(def gsm
  '{:foo [getFoo setFoo]
    :bar [getFunkyBar setWeirdBar]})

And some REPL interactions:

user> (def data {:foo 1 :bar 2})
#'user/data
user> (def atom-bean-converter (compile-atom-bean-converter '[IFunky] gsm))
#'user/atom-bean-converter
user> (def atom-bean (atom-bean-converter data))
#'user/atom-bean
user> (.setFoo data-bean 3)
nil
user> (.getFoo atom-bean)
3
user> (.getFunkyBar data-bean)
2
user> (.setWeirdBar data-bean 5)
nil
user> (.getFunkyBar data-bean)
5

Idiopathy

I thought I remembered Chouser demonstrating basically the same sort of use of eval on SO and, sure enough, here it is. The scenario under consideration there is different, but his explanation of the performance trade-off involved is very pertinent to the present situation. – Puissant

Answer 2

The point is reify being a macro itself which is expanded before your own set-and-get macro - so the set-and-get approach doesn't work. So, instead of an inner macro inside reify, you need a macro on the "outside" that generates the reify, too.

Licentiate

Answer 3

Since the trick is to expand the body before reify sees it, a more general solution could be something along these lines:

(defmacro reify+ [& body]
  `(reify ~@(map macroexpand-1 body)))

Skiplane

Answer 4

You can also try to force your macro to expand first:

(ns qqq (:use clojure.walk))
(defmacro expand-first [the-set & code] `(do ~@(prewalk #(if (and (list? %) (contains? the-set (first %))) (macroexpand-all %) %) code)))

(defmacro setter [setterf kw] `(~setterf [~'this ~'v] (swap! ~'data assoc ~kw ~'v)))
(defmacro getter [getterf kw] `(~getterf [~'this] (~kw @~'data)))
(expand-first #{setter getter} 
 (reify HugeInterface 
  (getter getX :x)
  (setter setX :x)))

Casket