metadata how does it work?

console.clj

(defn
  ^{:user/help-msg "Exit back to your shell"}
  exit
  "exit the program"
  []
  (System/exit 0))

When I compile that with slime/swank in emacs, then call (meta exit), that metadata isn't there. If I compile again - it is there. This means it doesn't work when running the code normally.

user> (defn
  ^{:user/help-msg "Exit back to your shell"}
  exit
  "exit the program"
  [](System/exit 0))
# 'user/exit

user> (meta #'user/exit)
{:ns #<Namespace user>, :name exit, :file "NO_SOURCE_FILE", :line 1, :arglists ([]), :doc "exit the program", :user/help-msg "Exit back to your shell"}```

Doing (meta exit) or even (meta user/exit) won't work here because we're looking for metadata on a var (functions are the equivalent of (def f (fn [] ...))).

user> exit
user/exit
user> #'exit (var user/exit)

Yeah, this was pointed out to me on #clojure. Seems obvious to me now :)

Problem is, now I can't work out how to have 2 vars that reference each other - seems the clojure compiler can only let you reference vars that were defined above you in the code.

I'e tried messing with (resolve (symbol "help")) to get around that but had no luck :(

Oh I've solved that now.

To have two vars that refer to each other, you need to define one first:

(def something)

(defn another []
   (let [blah (something)]
       blah))

(defn something []
   (format "hi: %s" (meta #'another)))