Clojure: High Performance JVM Programming

Destructuring in Clojure

Destructuring is a feature in Clojure that is not common in other lisps; the idea is to allow you to write more concise code in scenarios where code doesn't really add value (for example, getting the first element from a list or the second parameter from a function) and concentrating only on what is important to you.

In order to understand this better, let's see an example of why destructuring can help you:

(let [v [1 2 3]] [(first v) (nth v 2)]) ;; [1 3]

What's wrong with the previous code? Nothing really, but you need to start thinking about what is v, what the first value of v is, what the nth function does, and at what index v starts.

Instead we can do this:

(let [[f s t] [1 2 3]] [f t]) ;; [1 3]

Once you are used to destructuring, ...