Clojure Goodness: Set Default Value For nil Function Argument With fnil

The function fnil can be used to create a new function from an existing function where we define default values for arguments that can be nil. Especially when we want to use a function that we didn't write ourselves this can be helpful to handle nil values in a consistent way. We can prevent for example a NullPointerException by setting a default value. We can define default values for a maximum of three arguments for the original function. When we invoke the function that is returned from the fnil function any extra arguments after the first arguments are simply passed on to the original function.

In the following example code we define a new times function based on the * function. In the example we define a default value for the first three arguments.

(ns mrhaki.core.fnil
  (:require [clojure.test :refer [is]]))

;; + throws NullPointerException when argument is nil.
(is (thrown? NullPointerException (+ nil 1)))

;; Create new function with default 0 when argument is nil.
(is (= 1 ((fnil + 0) nil 1)))


(def times 
  "Return function * with 
  default value 1 for argument 1 when nil,
  default value 10 for argumen 2 when nil and
  default value 100 for argument 3 when nil."
  (fnil * 1 10 100))

(is (= 2 
       (times nil 2)
       (* 1 2)))

(is (= 20 
       (times 2 nil) 
       (* 2 10)))

(is (= 2000 
       (times 2 nil nil) 
       (* 2 10 100)))

(is (= 200
       (times nil 2 nil)
       (* 1 2 100)))

(is (= 20
       (times nil nil 2)
       (* 1 10 2)))

;; We can use more arguments that are passed
;; to the original * function.
(is (= 4000 
       (times 2 nil nil 2)
       (* 2 10 100 2)))

(is (= 1000
       (times nil nil nil)
       (* 1 10 100)))

(is (= 2000
       (times nil nil nil 2)
       (* 1 10 100 2)))

Written with Clojure 1.10.1.