What is the purpose of core.clj file?

Question

I am just started on clojure and have a very basic question about core.clj.

What is a convention about it? What code should go there? Public API?

It is generated by leiningen when creating a project. I have looked into source code of some libraries and this file is also present there (per package?).

Thanks

Answer 1

There's no defined meaning for it, but in an application it's often where you'll find the entry point, the main- function. For libraries, foo.core is often the namespace users will import to get your main functionality.

You don't have to do it that way, but it's a semi-predictable place to have the 'central bit' of whatever it is you're writing - even if your actual logic and algorithmic code is somewhere else.

Answer 2

Leiningen generates foo.core because it needs to pick a name and core is generic enough that it probably wont' be wrong. It's a style decision, but I typically opt to rename core.clj to a name that is actually meaningful for my project.