Clojure Q&A - Recent questions tagged cl-format

problem with Null exception in cl-format

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 14:36:19 +0000

If the format string ends in ~@, there is code in cl-format to detect this
and issue a format-error. However, that error detection is wrong, and a null exception
happens rather than the format-error being reported.

To reproduce this, simply evaluate the following.

clojure.pprint> (cl-format false "~@")
Execution error (NullPointerException) at nrepl.middleware.interruptible-eval/evaluate$fn$fn (interruptible_eval.clj:87).

I have a fix for this which I'd like to contribute.

Here is the new version of the code compile-directive

(defn- compile-directive [s offset]
  (let [[raw-params [rest offset]] (extract-params s offset)
        [_ [rest offset flags]] (extract-flags rest offset)
        directive (first rest)
        ;; previous version was missing (if directive ...) here thus (format-error ...) never reached
        def (if directive (get directive-table (Character/toUpperCase ^Character directive)))
        params (if def (map-params def (map translate-param raw-params) flags offset))]
    (if (not directive)
      (format-error "Format string ended in the middle of a directive" offset))
    (if (not def)
      (format-error (str "Directive \"" directive "\" is undefined") offset))
    [(struct compiled-directive ((:generator-fn def) params offset) def params offset)
     (let [remainder (subs rest 1) 
           offset (inc offset)
           trim? (and (= \newline (:directive def))
                      (not (:colon params)))
           trim-count (if trim? (prefix-count remainder [\space \tab]) 0)
           remainder (subs remainder trim-count)
           offset (+ offset trim-count)]
       [remainder offset])]))

The old version

Potential issue in ~:[ directive in cl-format.

Thu, 29 Dec 2022 14:30:48 +0000

I am using the cl-format function from the clojure.pprint library. I am using the ~:[ directive as follows:

(cl-format nil "~:[~;~a~]" arg)

When arg is nil, I get the expected empty string as a return value. However, when arg is non-nil, liike 1, I get an error: "Not enough arguments for format definition." When I pass a second arg to the cl-format function:

(cl-format nil "~:[~;~a~]" 1 2)

it prints 2, so it's acting as if it is absorbing the first argument to check for its non-nil character and then passing the second to the internal format directive.

From my reading of both the CL Hyperspec, and the gigamonkies format reference, the ~:[ should not absorb the argument but pass it on to the internal spec for printing. Is this an error in the implementation of cl-format or am I misinterpreting the spec?

I've looked at the source and it sure looks like the navigator argument to execute-sub-format on line 862 of https://github.com/clojure/clojure/blob/master/src/clj/clojure/pprint/cl_format.clj should be arg-navigator instead.

Is this a bug in cl-format

Wed, 04 Aug 2021 13:44:47 +0000

The following call to cl-format results in a Java level null pointer exception.

(cl-format false "
~@")

Of course that code sample is pretty meaningless. The real example which lead to this minimum test case was the following.

(cl-format false "~&~
                            item=~A~@
                            transitions=~A~@
                            lhs=~A~@
                            rhs=~A~@"
                      1
                      2
                      3
                      4
                      )

As near as I can tell the problem seems to be in dealing with the final ~@ where the clojure code seems to (I'm guessing) destructure the nil return value of extract-params
in the function compile-directive in cl_format.clj.

(defn- compile-directive [s offset]
  (let [[raw-params [rest offset]] (extract-params s offset)
        [_ [rest offset flags]] (extract-flags rest offset)
        directive (first rest)
        def (get directive-table (Character/toUpperCase ^Character directive))
        params (if def (map-params def (map translate-param raw-params) flags offset))]
    (if (not directive)
      (format-error "Format string ended in the middle of a directive" offset))
    (if (not def)
      (format-error (str "Directive \"" directive "\" is undefined") offset))
    [(struct compiled-directive ((:generator-fn def) params offset) def params offset)
     (let [remainder (subs rest 1) 
           offset (inc offset)
           trim? (and (= \newline (:directive def))
                      (not (:colon params)))
           trim-count (if trim? (prefix-count remainder [\space \tab]) 0)
           remainder (subs remainder trim-count)
           offset (+ offset trim-count)]
       [remainder offset])]))

Here is the stack trace I see.

1. Unhandled java.lang.NullPointerException
   (No message)

             cl_format.clj: 1717  clojure.pprint/compile-directive
             cl_format.clj: 1861  clojure.pprint/compile-format/fn
                  AFn.java:  154  clojure.lang.AFn/applyToHelper
                  AFn.java:  144  clojure.lang.AFn/applyTo
                  core.clj:  665  clojure.core/apply
             utilities.clj:   37  clojure.pprint/consume
             cl_format.clj: 1845  clojure.pprint/compile-format
             cl_format.clj: 1845  clojure.pprint/compile-format
             cl_format.clj:   62  clojure.pprint/cl-format
             cl_format.clj:   27  clojure.pprint/cl-format
               RestFn.java:  521  clojure.lang.RestFn/invoke
                      REPL: 1391  clojure-rte.rte-core/eval24978
                      REPL: 1391  clojure-rte.rte-core/eval24978
             Compiler.java: 7176  clojure.lang.Compiler/eval
             Compiler.java: 7131  clojure.lang.Compiler/eval
                  core.clj: 3214  clojure.core/eval
                  core.clj: 3210  clojure.core/eval
    interruptible_eval.clj:   87  nrepl.middleware.interruptible-eval/evaluate/fn/fn
                  AFn.java:  152  clojure.lang.AFn/applyToHelper
                  AFn.java:  144  clojure.lang.AFn/applyTo
                  core.clj:  665  clojure.core/apply
                  core.clj: 1973  clojure.core/with-bindings*
                  core.clj: 1973  clojure.core/with-bindings*
               RestFn.java:  425  clojure.lang.RestFn/invoke
    interruptible_eval.clj:   87  nrepl.middleware.interruptible-eval/evaluate/fn
                  main.clj:  414  clojure.main/repl/read-eval-print/fn
                  main.clj:  414  clojure.main/repl/read-eval-print
                  main.clj:  435  clojure.main/repl/fn
                  main.clj:  435  clojure.main/repl
                  main.clj:  345  clojure.main/repl
               RestFn.java: 1523  clojure.lang.RestFn/invoke
    interruptible_eval.clj:   84  nrepl.middleware.interruptible-eval/evaluate
    interruptible_eval.clj:   56  nrepl.middleware.interruptible-eval/evaluate
    interruptible_eval.clj:  152  nrepl.middleware.interruptible-eval/interruptible-eval/fn/fn
                  AFn.java:   22  clojure.lang.AFn/run
               session.clj:  202  nrepl.middleware.session/session-exec/main-loop/fn
               session.clj:  201  nrepl.middleware.session/session-exec/main-loop
                  AFn.java:   22  clojure.lang.AFn/run
               Thread.java:  834  java.lang.Thread/run