How to install Clojure on Windows

For reference, here is how we in the App Lab recommend installing Clojure. The official guide works great for MacOS and Linux users, but it currently has some confusing aspects for Windows users that are worth clarifying.

Installing Java

First, check if you have Java installed already. Open a command prompt (e.g. by typing win+r cmd<enter>) and type java -version. If you get reasonable output, Java is already installed and you can move on to the next step.

If you don’t have Java installed, download the Windows .zip version of the Java Development Kit 12, extract it, and run the installer. If you’re successful, try the approach in the previous paragraph to ensure Java is now installed and available. If that doesn’t work, stop by the App Lab for help.

Installing Clojure with Leiningen

Download the Windows lein.bat script for Leiningen. You will probably have to right-click on the link and select ‘Save link as…’ (or ‘Save target as’ in Microsoft Edge) in order to download it instead of open it.

Open a command prompt (e.g. by typing win+r cmd<enter>), type cd Downloads and hit enter to move to the directory with the downloaded .bat script.

Firefox users have an extra step here. Type dir and hit enter to see a list of files in the current directory. If you see lein.bat.txt and not lein.bat, you’ll need to rename the file using this command: rename lein.bat.txt lein.bat. Then check that the rename did what you expected by saying dir again.

Now that you have lein.bat in the current directory, type lein self-install and hit enter to install Leiningen. This shouldn’t take more than a minute or two, depending on your network connection.

If you’re successful, you should be able to type lein repl and hit enter to get to a Clojure REPL (read-eval-print loop) and run Clojure code. If that doesn’t work, stop by the App Lab for help.

Adding lein to your path (optional)

This step is optional, but if you don’t do it, you will only be able to execute the lein command when you have cd’d to your Downloads directory in your command prompt (which you will need to do every time you open a new command prompt window).

So, to make it possible to execute lein anywhere, we need to add the directory containing the lein.bat file to the “path”, so that the command prompt will know where to find it. It’s not ideal to have your Downloads directory in your path, because then you might accidentally execute a downloaded program instead of one that you intend. So we’ll create a new directory named programs in your home directory, move your lein.bat file there, and add that directory to your path instead. To do that, issue these commands in the command prompt:

cd ..
mkdir programs
move Downloads\lein.bat programs\
cd programs

Then, add the current directory to the path. First, use your mouse to select the current directory, which is everything before the > on the bottom like of your command prompt. My directory was C:\Users\terrell\programs, but you will likely have a different user name than me. Then hit control-c to copy it to your clipboard.

Finally, follow the directory in your clipboard to your path by following the directions on this page. When you have to enter the directory, paste it with control-v—and remember to add a trailing backslack (\) at the end.

To test that it worked, open a new command prompt window and type lein repl. If it brings up a Clojure REPL, you’re done. If it says that the lein command could not be found, there was a problem. You can ask for help on our Slack group or swing by the App Lab (SN 027) for help.