First off, I am a student in week 5 of 12 at The Iron Yard studying Java backend engineering. The course is composed of roughly 60% Java, 25% JavaScript and 15% Clojure.
I have been given the following problem (outlined in the comment):
;; Given an ArrayList of words, return a HashMap> containing a keys for every
;; word's first letter. The value for the key will be an ArrayList of all
;; words in the list that start with that letter. An empty string has no first
;; letter so don't add a key for it.
(defn index-words [word-list]
(loop [word (first word-list)
index {}]
(if (contains? index (subs word 0 1))
(assoc index (subs word 0 1) (let [words (index (subs word 0 1))
word word]
(conj words word)))
(assoc index (subs word 0 1) (conj nil word)))
(if (empty? word-list)
index
(recur (rest word-list) index))))
I was able to get a similar problem working using zipmap but I am positive that I am missing something with this one. The code compiles but fails to run.
Specifically, I am failing to update my hashmap index in the false clause of the 'if'.
I have tested all of the components of this function in the REPL, and they work in isolation. but I am struggling to put them all together.
For your reference, here is the code that calls word-list.
(let [word-list ["aardvark" "apple" "zamboni" "phone"]]
(printf "index-words(%s) -> %s\n" word-list (index-words word-list)))
Rather than getting a working solution from the community, my hope is for a few pointers to get my brain moving in the right direction.
The function assoc does not modify index. You need to work with the new value that assoc returns. Same is true for conj: it does not modify the map you pass it.
I hope, this answer is of the nature you expected to get: just a pointer where your problem is.
BTW: If you can do with a PersistentList this becomes a one-liner when using reduce instead of loop and recur. An interesting function for you could be update-in.
Have fun with Clojure.