Clojurians Log v2

the printing of a return value is done by your repl, your main class usually won't be a repl. if you use System/exit the number you pass will be returned to the shell

and of course (prn ...) can be used to print things the same way a repl would

The underlying Java main method returns void, i.e., nothing, so you can't return anything from -main in Clojure -- that's my thinking.

but what would it return to - your exit code is returned to the shell

printing isn't something returning does, it's something a repl does, and your main isn't a repl

seanc@Sean-win-11-laptop:~/clojure/value$ lein run
Hello, World!
seanc@Sean-win-11-laptop:~/clojure/value$ echo $?
0
seanc@Sean-win-11-laptop:~/clojure/value$ 

(ns return.value
  (:gen-class))

(defn -main
  "I don't do a whole lot ... yet."
  [& args]
  (println "Hello, World!")
  42)

oh I see what you were saying

Whereas

seanc@Sean-win-11-laptop:~/clojure/value$ lein run
Hello, World!
seanc@Sean-win-11-laptop:~/clojure/value$ echo $?
42
seanc@Sean-win-11-laptop:~/clojure/value$ 

(ns return.value
  (:gen-class))

(defn -main
  "I don't do a whole lot ... yet."
  [& args]
  (println "Hello, World!")
  (System/exit 42))

@seancorfield sound reasoning 🙂 Totally forgot that -mainis public static void main 😄 Ages since I touched Java.

Thanks both! I'll be printing 🙂