In Clojure functions are everywhere. In a previous post we learned that sets can be functions, but Clojure also makes keywords functions. A keyword is a symbol starting with a colon (:) and is mostly used in map entries as key symbol. The keyword as function accepts a map as single argument and returns the value for the key that equals the keyword in the map or nil if the keyword cannot be found.

In the following code we use keywords as function in several examples:

(ns mrhaki.core.keyword-function
  (:require [clojure.test :refer [is]]))

;; Sample map to use in examples.
(def user {:name "Hubert" :alias "mrhaki" :living {:country "Netherlands"}})


;; Keyword is a function with a map argument and
;; returns value for keyword in the map.
(is (= "mrhaki"
       (:alias user)
       ;; We get the same result with get.
       (get user :alias)))

(is (= {:country "Netherlands"} (:living user)))

(is (= "Netherlands"
       (:country (:living user))
       (-> user :living :country)
       ;; We can use get-in to get values from nested maps.
       (get-in user [:living :country])))


;; When keyword is not in the map we get a nil result.
(is (nil? (:city user)))
(is (= "not-found" (or (:city user) "not-found")))


;; Works also for namespaced keywords.
(is (= "mrhaki" (:user/alias {:name/full-name "Hubert" :user/alias "mrhaki"})))


;; Using keyword as function with juxt.
(is (= ["mrhaki" "Hubert"]
       ((juxt :alias :name) user)))

Written with Clojure 1.10.1.

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