Getting Clojure

Bindings Are Things Too

Surprisingly, the bindings between symbols and values, the things created by def, are also ordinary values. When you evaluate a def, Clojure creates a var, a thing that represents the binding between a symbol and a value. As illustrated in the figure, you can think of vars as having two slots: there’s a place for the symbol (maybe author) and a place for the value (perhaps "Austen").

In a lovely bit of introspection, you can also get at a var with the proper incantation, this time a # followed by a ’:

(def author "Austen")  ; Make a var.

#'author               ; Get at the var for author -> "Austen".

Like any other Clojure ...