leiningen/README.md

# Leiningen

<img src="http://leiningen.org/img/leiningen-banner.png"
 alt="Leiningen logo" title="The man himself" align="right" />

> "Leiningen!" he shouted. "You're insane! They're not creatures you can
> fight&mdash;they're an elemental&mdash;an 'act of God!' Ten miles long, two
> miles wide&mdash;ants, nothing but ants! And every single one of them a
> fiend from hell..."
> - from Leiningen Versus the Ants by Carl Stephenson

Leiningen is for automating Clojure projects without setting your hair on fire.

## Installation

If your preferred
[package manager](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/wiki/Packaging)
has a relatively recent version of Leiningen, try that first.
Otherwise you can install by hand:

Leiningen bootstraps itself using the `lein` shell script; there is no
separate install script. It handles installing its own dependencies,
which means the first run will take longer.

1. Make sure you have JDK 6 or later.
2. [Download the script](https://raw.github.com/technomancy/leiningen/stable/bin/lein).
3. Place it on your `$PATH`. (`~/bin` is a good choice if it is on your path.)
4. Set it to be executable. (`chmod 755 ~/bin/lein`)

There is still a lot of extant material on the Web concerning the
older
[Leiningen 1.x](https://raw.github.com/technomancy/leiningen/1.7.1/bin/lein)
version, which is still available if you need to work on older
projects that aren't compatible with 2.x yet. The
[upgrade guide](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/wiki/Upgrading)
has instructions on migrating to version 2.

On Windows most users can get
[the batch file](https://raw.github.com/technomancy/leiningen/stable/bin/lein.bat).
If you have PowerShell, wget.exe or curl.exe already installed and in
PATH, you can just run `lein self-install`. If you have
[Cygwin](http://www.cygwin.com/) you should be able to use the shell
script above rather than the batch file.

## Basic Usage

The
[tutorial](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/doc/TUTORIAL.md)
has a detailed walk-through of the steps involved in creating a new
project, but here are the commonly-used tasks:

    $ lein new [TEMPLATE] NAME # generate a new project skeleton

    $ lein test [TESTS] # run the tests in the TESTS namespaces, or all tests

    $ lein repl # launch an interactive REPL session

    $ lein run -m my.namespace # run the -main function of a namespace

    $ lein uberjar # package the project and dependencies as standalone jar

Use `lein help` to see a complete list. `lein help $TASK` shows the
usage for a specific task.

You can also chain tasks together in a single command by using the
`do` task with comma-separated tasks:

    $ lein do clean, test foo.test-core, jar

Most tasks need to be run from somewhere inside a project directory to
work, but some (`new`, `help`, `search`, `version`, and `repl`) may
run from anywhere.

## Configuration

The `project.clj` file in the project root should look like this:

```clj
(defproject myproject "0.5.0-SNAPSHOT"
  :description "A project for doing things."
  :license "Eclipse Public License 1.0"
  :url "http://github.com/technomancy/myproject"
  :dependencies [[org.clojure/clojure "1.5.1"]]
  :plugins [[lein-ring "0.4.5"]])
```

The `lein new` task generates a project skeleton with an appropriate
starting point from which you can work. See the
[sample.project.clj](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/sample.project.clj)
file (also available via `lein help sample`) for a detailed listing of
configuration options.

The `project.clj` file can be customized further with the use of
[profiles](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/doc/PROFILES.md).

## Documentation

Leiningen documentation is organized as a number of guides:

 * [Tutorial](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/doc/TUTORIAL.md)
 * [Polyglot (e.g. Clojure/Java) projects](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/doc/MIXED_PROJECTS.md)
 * Leiningen [Profiles](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/doc/PROFILES.md)
 * [Deployment & Distribution of Libraries](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/doc/DEPLOY.md)
 * [Sample project.clj](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/sample.project.clj)
 * [Writing Plugins](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/doc/PLUGINS.md)
 * [FAQ](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/doc/FAQ.md)
 * [Contributing](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/CONTRIBUTING.md)

## Plugins

Leiningen supports plugins which may contain both new tasks and hooks
that modify behaviour of existing tasks. See
[the plugins wiki page](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/wiki/Plugins)
for a full list. If a plugin is needed for successful test or build
runs, (such as `lein-tar`) then it should be added to `:plugins` in
project.clj, but if it's for your own convenience (such as
`swank-clojure`) then it should be added to the `:plugins` list in the
`:user` profile in `~/.lein/profiles.clj`. See the
[profiles guide](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/doc/PROFILES.md)
for details on how to add to your `:user` profile. The
[plugin guide](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/stable/doc/PLUGINS.md)
explains how to write plugins.

## License

Source Copyright © 2009-2013 Phil Hagelberg, Alex Osborne, Dan Larkin, and
[contributors](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/contributors). 
Distributed under the Eclipse Public License, the same as Clojure
uses. See the file COPYING.

Thanks to Stuart Halloway for Lancet and Tim Dysinger for convincing
me that good builds are important.

Images Copyright © 2010 Phil Hagelberg. Distributed under the Creative
Commons Attribution + ShareAlike
License. [Full-size version](http://leiningen.org/img/leiningen-full.jpg)
available.