Clojure Record Heirarchy

In Clojure, if you want a basic OOP behavior without killing yourself to fully implement Java classes and interfaces in Clojure, the preferred technique is to use records. Sometimes implementing protocols in records suits your needs, mostly due to speed of code execution. However, if you want polymorphism with your records, then multimethods are where it’s at.

Admittedly, multimethods are very flexible, so the technique I’ll show you is one of many techniques you could use. The basic pattern I use for inheritance with records, is to use the derive  command with keywords that are kept as a value in the record. For example,

type  is used to track isa  relationships of ::food  and ::fruit . derive  is used to set ::food  as the parent of ::fruit . Notice the use of custom constructors to set default values for type  in the records.

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Quick OOP Example

Want some Object Oriented Programming in Clojure? Here’s a quick example.

Let’s create a dog object.

Now let’s use the dog object.

See, OOP in Clojure is fairly simple. This sample uses protocols with records, but you can add polymorphism with just a little extra work. For polymorphism, use records and multimethods.

Razvan’s ‘defrecord’ Example

I absolutely love the user razvan’s Clojure defrecord example over at stackoverflow, so I copied it here. I know I’ll never find it again if I don’t. Look at the original over on stackoverflow at this link.

Here’s the example …

Clojure defrecord example:

If you’re looking for more information on combining protocols with records in Clojure, then Matthew Boston has the blog for you!