[BLOG] Once Upon A Class

[Daniel Szmulewicz]

Every time you press ENTER at the REPL, a new class is created. In addition, it comes with a new class loader instance exclusively dedicated to loading it. That's Clojure behind the scenes doing its runtime magic. On the other hand, in a nREPL client like Cider, not one but two class loader instances are produced, and that is a quirk that carries over since its earliest days. I bring you that story as an excuse for dwelling on the subject of class loading. Arcane, maybe, but essential.

Read on.

[Sean Corfield]

When I tried some of your code in a default REPL (via the Clojure CLI), I don't see the same results. In particular:

user=> (hash (.getContextClassLoader (Thread/currentThread)))

1865201235

user=> (hash (.getContextClassLoader (Thread/currentThread)))

1865201235

user=> (hash (.getContextClassLoader (Thread/currentThread)))

1865201235

user=> (hash (.getContextClassLoader (Thread/currentThread)))

1865201235

(although all the rest of it seems to apply)

On Mon, May 24, 2021 at 2:10 AM Daniel Szmulewicz <daniel.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

Every time you press ENTER at the REPL, a new class is created. In addition, it comes with a new class loader instance exclusively dedicated to loading it. That's Clojure behind the scenes doing its runtime magic. On the other hand, in a nREPL client like Cider, not one but two class loader instances are produced, and that is a quirk that carries over since its earliest days. I bring you that story as an excuse for dwelling on the subject of class loading. Arcane, maybe, but essential.

Read on.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Clojure" group.
To post to this group, send email to clo...@googlegroups.com
Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
clojure+u...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/clojure/d7c270ef-d8e0-4935-ac2f-6fd56c9d4c3en%40googlegroups.com.

--

Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN
An Architect's View -- https://corfield.org/
World Singles Networks, LLC. -- https://worldsinglesnetworks.com/

"Perfection is the enemy of the good."
-- Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist (1821-1880)

[daniel szmulewicz]

Hi Sean, 

Absolutely, the growing stack of context class loaders is a quirk of the nREPL client. 

 something fairly unexpected is that with a CIDER/nREPL setup, each evaluation adds an extra classloader

And later I write:

In the default REPL, one instance of DynamicClassLoader stays associated with the REPL throughout the session. In a nREPL client, instances of DynamicClassLoader keep piling up.

If you think there is a lack of clarity, I'll be happy to amend the text to make it less likely for the reader to miss that. Thank you very much for your input.

Daniel

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "Clojure" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/clojure/uypJ_9opzN0/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to clojure+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/clojure/CAD4thx_ENAaAV2Oa5dLNQW51sg7W4VU6nWfM3r0Qgx9HYsqd-g%40mail.gmail.com.

[Sean Corfield]

It wasn't clear to me that the entire article only applies to nREPL. Especially since most of the article just uses "REPL" and most of the code does work in a normal REPL -- and you start with:

Our exploration of the topic makes heavy use of a REPL, I invite you to fire one up and play along.

and then later say:

It is worth reproducing the experiment in a plain Clojure REPL and a nREPL client side by side.

which makes it seem like everything up to that point applies to both and this part is a specific difference.

(the article may be particularly confusing for me since I never use nREPL at all so "REPL" = "Clojure REPL" as far as I'm concerned)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/clojure/CAABPU68OsZ8XdejzTzz%2BZ%3DvyP4P-ECPm3j1sbqZyMMkN5Giicw%40mail.gmail.com.

[daniel szmulewicz]

Hi Sean, 

Thank you for explaining what was confusing. With that input, I've edited my blog post, separating the parts that apply to both REPL and nREPL and those that apply to nREPL only.

I hope this avoids the pitfall you've described, and that the general discussion on Clojure's on-the-fly code generation and class loading mechanism will be of benefit to all Clojurians. 

Daniel

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/clojure/CAD4thx8nCj%3DifMU3vJDbGL%2BtLPp0LCr6enMHjJ0bMCD5pLHieA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Sean Corfield]

Much clearer now! Thank you!

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/clojure/CAABPU6-O50iR2QC43YeLf5O5kRUsRSa7mQo43hz9XXUx7jFX1Q%40mail.gmail.com.