Question

Is there a cleaner way to do something like the following in clojure?

(defn this [x] (* 2 x))
(defn that [x] (inc x))
(defn the-other [x] (-> x this that))

(defn make-vector [thing]
  (let [base (vector (this (:a thing))
                     (that (:b thing)))]
    (if-let [optional (:c thing)]
      (conj base (the-other optional))
      base)))

(make-vector {:a 1, :b 2}) ;=> [2 3]
(make-vector {:a 1, :b 2, :c 3}) ;=> [2 3 7]

By “cleaner” I mean something closer to this:

(defn non-working-make-vector [thing]
  (vector (this (:a thing))
          (that (:b thing))
          (if (:c thing) (the-other (:c thing)))))

(non-working-make-vector {:a 1, :b 2} ;=> [2 3 nil]  no nil, please!
(non-working-make-vector {:a 1, :b 2, :c 3} ;=> [2 3 7]

Note that I might want to call some arbitrary function (e.g. this, that, the-other) on any of the keys in thing and place the result in the returned vector. The important thing is that if the key doesn’t exist in the map it should not put a nil in the vector.

This is similar to this question but the output is a vector rather than a map so I can’t use merge.

Answer 1

(defn this [x] (* 2 x))
(defn that [x] (inc x))
(defn the-other [x] (-> x this that))

(def k-f-map {:a this
              :b that
              :c the-other})

(def m1 {:a 1 :b 2})
(def m2 {:a 1 :b 2 :c 3})

(defn make-vector [k-f-map m]
  (reduce (fn [res [fk fv]]
            (if (fk m)
              (conj res (fv (fk m)))
              res))
          [] k-f-map))

(make-vector k-f-map m1)
-> [2 3]

(make-vector k-f-map m2)
-> [2 3 7]