---
title: The five common forms of Clojure keywords
tags: [clojure, keyword, tutorial]
---

Depending on what libraries are being used, Clojure has a handful of various
different idiomatic forms keywords can take. When approaching some forms, like
those in [Datomic](http://www.datomic.com/), the overall intention may not be
immediately clear. For a new Clojure developer, it may also be unclear which
form should be the default, and why. This post aims to add some clarity on the
subject.

### Brief: the five common forms
1. `:foo`, which is just your plain old keyword
2. `::foo`, which is a namespaced keyword for the current namespace
3. :my.ns/name, which is a namespaced keyword for a valid ns
4. ::my/name, which uses the :as alias to achieve the same as point 3
5. :something/foo, which is commonly used with Datomic and doesn't actually map to a valid ns

specific cases like honeysql

https://www.deepbluelambda.org/programming/clojure/know-your-keywords

---
title: The five common forms of Clojure keywords
labels: [clojure, tutorial]
tags: [clojure, keyword]
---

Depending on what libraries are being used, Clojure has a handful of various
different idiomatic forms keywords can take. When approaching some forms, like
those in [Datomic](http://www.datomic.com/), the overall intention may not be
immediately clear. For a new Clojure developer, it may also be unclear which
form should be the default, and why. This post aims to add some clarity on the
subject and is meant to apply to both Clojure and ClojureScript.

### Brief: the five common forms
1. `:foo`, which is just your plain old keyword
2. `::foo`, which is a namespaced keyword for the current namespace
3. :my.ns/name, which is a namespaced keyword for a valid ns
4. ::my/name, which uses the :as alias to achieve the same as point 3
5. :something/foo, which is commonly used with Datomic and doesn't actually map to a valid ns

specific cases like honeysql

https://www.deepbluelambda.org/programming/clojure/know-your-keywords

Add labels to keywords post
Add labels to keywords post
