Home/ Questions/Q 321547
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-12T08:51:21+00:00

In common lisp I can do this: src-> (defmacro macro-hello () `hello) (eval ‘(macro-hello))

  • 0

In common lisp I can do this:

src-> (defmacro macro-hello ()
`”hello”)

(eval ‘(macro-hello))

no problem.

In clojure:

(defmacro macro-hello []
`”hello”)

(eval ‘(macro-hello))

gives me an error. Have I done something wrong?

Clojure Error:

Exception in thread “main” java.lang.Exception: Unable to resolve symbol: macro-hello in this context (NO_SOURCE_FILE:12)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:4340)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:4286)
at clojure.lang.Compiler$InvokeExpr.parse(Compiler.java:2767)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:4498)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:4325)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:4286)
at clojure.lang.Compiler$BodyExpr$Parser.parse(Compiler.java:3862)
at clojure.lang.Compiler$FnMethod.parse(Compiler.java:3697)
at clojure.lang.Compiler$FnMethod.access$1100(Compiler.java:3574)
at clojure.lang.Compiler$FnExpr.parse(Compiler.java:2963)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSeq(Compiler.java:4494)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:4325)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.eval(Compiler.java:4530)
at clojure.core$eval__3990.invoke(core.clj:1728)
at com.yourcompany.defpackage$_main__4.invoke(defpackage.clj:12)
at clojure.lang.AFn.applyToHelper(AFn.java:171)
at clojure.lang.AFn.applyTo(AFn.java:164)
at com.yourcompany.defpackage.main(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.Exception: Unable to resolve symbol: macro-hello in this context
at clojure.lang.Compiler.resolveIn(Compiler.java:4682)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.resolve(Compiler.java:4628)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyzeSymbol(Compiler.java:4605)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.analyze(Compiler.java:4307)
… 17 more
Java Result: 1

[Edited]: added ending double quote

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Your code works for me.

    user> (defmacro macro-hello [] `"hello")
#'user/macro-hello
user> (eval '(macro-hello))
"hello"

    This is via bleeding-edge Clojure. “Unable to resolve symbol” means it can’t find the macro called macro-hello in the current namespace. Are you running this from the REPL or in a source file? I typed your statements at a REPL literally.

    Not sure if this is a cause of problems for you, but please note the difference between ` and ‘ in Clojure. ` does namespace resolution and ' doesn’t.

    user> `macro-hello
user/macro-hello
user> 'macro-hello
macro-hello

    This is different from Common Lisp’s behavior. Backtick-quoting a String like `"hello" doesn’t make much sense, since Strings don’t belong to namespaces, but it also doesn’t hurt anything.

    (I’m assuming you made a typo in your Clojure code, with the missing double-quote.)

    • 0