The slurp funtion in Clojure can be used to read the contents of a file and return it as a string value. We can use several types as argument for the function. For example a string argument is used as URI and if that is not valid as a file name of the file to read. A File instance can be used directly as argument as well. But also Reader, BufferedReader, InputStream, URI, URL, Socket, byte[] and char[]. As an option we can specify the encoding used to read the file content using the :encoding keyword. The default encoding is UTF-8 if we don’t specify the encoding option.

In the following example we use the slurp function in different use cases. We use a file named README with the content Clojure rocks!:

(ns mrhaki.sample.slurp
    (:require [clojure.java.io :as io]
              [clojure.test :refer [is]])
    (:import (java.io File)))

  ;; slurp interperts a String value as a file name.
  (is (= "Clojure rocks!" (slurp "files/README")))
  ;; Using the encoding option.
  (is (= "Clojure rocks!" (slurp "files/README" :encoding "UTF-8")))

  ;; We can also use an explicit File object.
  (is (= "Clojure rocks!" (slurp (io/file "files/README"))))
  (is (= "Clojure rocks!" (slurp (File. "files/README"))))

  ;; We can also use an URL as argument.
  ;; For example to read from the classpath:
  (is (= "Clojure rocks!" (slurp (io/resource "data/README"))))

  ;; Or HTTP endpoint
  (is (= "Clojure rocks!" (slurp "https://www.mrhaki.com/clojure.txt")))

Written with Clojure 1.11.1.

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