Clojure Goodness: Repeating A Value Or Function Invocation

In Clojure we can use the repeat function to get an infinite sequence of a given value. We can pass a length argument to get a fixed size sequence of the value. Clojure also provides the repeatedly function that takes as argument a function without arguments. A infinite sequence of invocations of the function is returned. Just like with the repeat function we can pass a length argument so the returned sequence has a fixed size.

We use the repeat and repeatedly function in the following example:

(ns mrhaki.core.repeat
  (:require [clojure.test :refer [is]])
  (:import (java.time LocalTime)))


;; repeat creates an infinite sequence of the given value.
(is (= ["Clojure" "Clojure" "Clojure"] 
       (take 3 (repeat "Clojure"))))

;; We can pass a length argument to restrict the number of 
;; times the value is repeated.
(is (= ["rocks" "rocks" "rocks"]
       (repeat 3 "rocks")))

(defn parrot-talk 
  [s]
  (repeat 2 s))

(is (= ["Polly wants a cracker" "Polly wants a cracker"]
       (parrot-talk "Polly wants a cracker")))


(defn before?
  "Helper function returns true if t1 is before t2, false otherwise"
  [[^LocalTime t1 ^LocalTime t2]]
  (.isBefore t1 t2))

(defn current-time 
  "Return current time"
  []
  (LocalTime/now))

;; repeatedly create an infinite sequence of function invocations.
;; The function must have no arguments.
(is (before? (take 2 (repeatedly current-time))))

(is (before? (repeatedly 2 current-time)))


(defn latest-time
  "Get the 'latest' time from a collection with time values."
  [coll]
  (reduce (fn [latest time] (if (.isAfter latest time) latest time)) coll))

(def current-times (repeatedly 100 current-time))

;; as each time is later than the next time value
;; the following equation must be true.
(is (= (latest-time current-times) (last current-times)))

Written with Clojure 1.10.1.