Leiningen build automation tool

Leiningen will help you create, build and deploy your Clojure projects.

Practicalli recommends using Clojure CLI

For new project, Clojure CLI is recommended as it requires fewer resources and enables a more customisable approach to configuring project and running tools to support Clojure development.

Install Leiningen

Install the Leiningen tool using the specific instructions for your Operating System

{% tabs first="Linux", second="Homebrew", third="GitBash", forth="Chocolatey", fifth="Windows Manual" %}

LinuxHomebrewGitBashChocolateyWindows

Download the lein script to your local bin directory. Then make the lein script executable and run lein to download the full version.

mkdir ~/bin
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/technomancy/leiningen/stable/bin/lein > ~/bin/lein
chmod u+x ~/bin/lein
lein

If the command lein is not found, run source ~/.bashrc to ensure your bin directory is on the path.

If you have Homebrew installed, run the following command in a terminal window.

brew install leiningen

GitBash allows you to use the Linux lein script, which may have less issues when installing.

Create a directory called C:\Users\your-user-name\AppData\Local\Programs\Leiningen

Download the lein file and save it to the above directory

Open Environment variables for your account and add the directory to your path

Open a command window and run the command: lein

The full version of Leiningen will be downloaded and Leiningen is ready to use.

If you have Chocolatey installed, add the Leiningen package by running the following command in a terminal window.

choco install lein

Create a directory called C:\Users\your-user-name\AppData\Local\Programs\Leiningen

Download the lein.bat file and save it to the above directory

Open Environment variables for your account and add the directory to your path

Open a command window and run the command: lein.bat

The full version of Leiningen will be downloaded and Leiningen is ready to use.

Run Leiningen

Check Leiningen is working by running lein command in a terminal

lein help

If a list of Leiningen commands is shown then it is working correctly.

Create project

Create a new Clojure project with Leiningen using the new task

lein new template-name domain/project-name

Built-in templates include app and lib

Create a new project called playground

Open a terminal window and in a directory where you usually keep your projects, run the following command

lein new app practicalli/playground

A new directory will be created called playground with a src/practicalli/playground.clj

Unit Testing

Leiningen automatically includes the test directory when running, so no additional configuration is required if all tests reside inside the test directory.

Run all the tests saved to file:

lein test

Run just the unit tests in a specific namepsace.

lein test :only domain.namespace-test

Test Plugins

The following Leiningen plugins watch the file system and will run tests when a file change is detected in the project files.

• lein-test-refresh
• lein-auto

Configure test paths

:test-paths added as a top level key to the defproject configuration in the project.clj file will configure specific paths for tests

For example, if the tests are defined under project-name/clj/tests then the project.clj file would look as follows:

(defproject my-project "0.5.0-SNAPSHOT"
  :description "A project for doing things."
  :license "Creative Commons Zero"
  :url "http://github.com/practicalli/my-project"

  :dependencies [[org.clojure/clojure "1.10.1"]]
  :test-paths   ["clj/test" "src/test/clojure"]
  :plugins      [[lein-auto "0.1.3"]])

:source-paths can also be used to define the location of the source code files in the same manner.

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Last update: March 10, 2023