core.clj

(ns httpjson.core
  (:require [clj-http.client :as client]))

(defn create-db
  [db]
  (client/request {:as :json
                   :accept :json
                   :content-type :json
                   :method :put
                   :url (str "http://127.0.0.1:5984/" db)
                   :throw-exceptions false}))

(defn -main
  [& args]
  (prn (create-db "mydb"))
  (prn (create-db "mydb")))

out.txt

# First attempt, decodes body to a map

{:trace-redirects ["http://127.0.0.1:5984/mydb"], :request-time 175, :status 201, :headers {"server" "CouchDB/1.2.0 (Erlang OTP/R15B01)", "location" "http://127.0.0.1:5984/mydb", "date" "Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:13:12 GMT", "content-type" "application/json", "content-length" "12", "cache-control" "must-revalidate"}, :body {:ok true}}


# Second attempt, normally throws an exception. With :throw-exceptions false, body is a string.

{:trace-redirects ["http://127.0.0.1:5984/mydb"], :request-time 5, :status 412, :headers {"server" "CouchDB/1.2.0 (Erlang OTP/R15B01)", "date" "Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:13:12 GMT", "content-type" "application/json", "content-length" "95", "cache-control" "must-revalidate"}, :body "{\"error\":\"file_exists\",\"reason\":\"The database could not be created, the file already exists.\"}\n"}

project.clj

(defproject httpjson "0.0.0"
  :main httpjson.core
  :dependencies [[org.clojure/clojure "1.4.0"]
                 [clj-http "0.6.4"]])