Rationale

Provide a REPL that is super-friendly to beginners without bothering them with details that are hard to grasp when you are a Clojure beginner.

For instance,

1. def forms return the value of the var instead of the var itself
2. defn forms return a message saying that a function has been created instead of returning the var of the function created

How to install

If you want to try this really quickly install the Clojure CLI tools and then invoke this:

clojure -Sdeps "{:deps {viebel/klipse-repl {:mvn/version \"0.1.5\"}}}" -m klipse-repl.main

That should start a Clojure REPL that takes its input from the Rebel readline editor.

Note that I am using the clojure command and not the clj command because the latter wraps the process with another readline program (rlwrap).

If you happen to like it, you will probably find it more convenient to specify an alias in your $HOME/.clojure/deps.edn

{
 ...
 :aliases {:rebel {:extra-deps {viebel/klipse-repl {:mvn/version "0.1.5"}}
                   :main-opts  ["-m" "klipse-repl.main"]}}
}

And then run with a simpler:

$ clojure -A:klipse-repl

Still, I am using the clojure command and not the clj command because the latter wraps the process with another readline program (rlwrap).

Features

def and defn

The features of this section can be disabled by the --no-easy-defs flag.

1. def forms return the value of the var instead of the var itself
2. defn forms return a message saying that a function has been created instead of returning the var of the function created

Live dependency update

In order to enable the features listed in this section, you need to pass the --cool-forms flag.

refresh-classpath

add dependencies in your global or local deps.edn and call (refresh-classpath)

add-deps

add one or more dependencies on the fly - following deps.edn format:

user=> (add-deps '{tupelo {:mvn/version "0.9.103"}})

Classpath

Display classpath as a collection with (classpath)

Socket REPL

You can launch the REPL as a socket REPL server and connect with it remotely

$ clojure -A:klipse-repl --port 9876
launching socket repl on port 9876
Welcome to Klipse REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop)
Clojure 1.9.0
user=> (def a 1)

And then from another terminal, you connect with nc or telnet:

$ nc localhost 9876
Welcome to Klipse REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop)
Clojure 1.9.0
user=> a
1

Be aware that the state of the REPL is shared between the host and all its remote connections.

Autocompletion, indentation, coloring etc...

All of the great features of Bruce Hauman's rebel-readline are available in this REPL for the simple reason that this REPL is built on top of rebel-readline.

Credits

This REPL runs on top of the awesome rebel-readline by Bruce Hauman.