Hunchentoot handler changes the definition of another function

Question

I wrote some code to manage a postgresql database, and it is working on the console. Now I wish to put it on my internal network via hunchentoot.

I use clsql and packaged the database code as:

(defpackage :my-database
  (:use :common-lisp)
  (:documentation "several lines...")
  (:export almost-all-functions...))

(in-package #:my-database)

(defun new-patient (name gender height weight)
  "adds new patient to the db. all parameters are of type string."
  (let* ((height (parse-integer height))
         (weight (parse-integer weight))
         (corrected-weight (calculate-corrected-weight height weight gender)))
    (clsql:insert-records :into 'patients
                          :attributes '(height weight corrected-weight name gender patient-at-ward)
                      :values (list height weight corrected-weight name gender t))))

I imported the my-database package, and when I use this handler:

(define-easy-handler (debug :uri "/debug")
    (name gender height weight)
  (let ((ad (substitute #\space #\+ (string-trim " " ad))))
    (progn (format nil "Name:~A, Gender:~A, Height:~A, Weight:~A" name gender height weight)
           (redirect "/success"))))

It displays the html just fine. But this handler:

(define-easy-handler (new-patient :uri "/new-patient")
    (name gender height weight)
  (let ((name (substitute #\space #\+ (string-trim " " name))))
    (progn (my-database:new-patient name gender height weight)
           (redirect "/success"))))

throws an error:

Incorrect keyword arguments in ("Frank Sinatra" "male" "150" "55")

I noticed that when I type (my-database:new-patient ) at the REPL, emacs command minibuffer shows (my-database:new-patient &key name gender height weight). The &key part looked suspicious to me. Therefore I switched to my-database file, did slime-eval-last-expression-in-repl, which corrected the emacs command minibuffer display.

But this time, I got the following error:

Too few arguments in call to #<Compiled-function MY-DATABASE:NEW-PATIENT #x15870D76>:
0 arguments provided, at least 4 required.

And re-evaluating the hunchentoot handler caused emacs command minibuffer to show the &key again. Lastly, I changed the handler code to (my-database:new-patient :name name :gender gender :height height :weight weight), which throws this error:

8 arguments were provided, but at most 4 are accepted by the current global
definition of NEW-PATIENT

What may be the reason?

Answer 1

The reason is the semantics of define-easy-handler:

The resulting handler will be a Lisp function with the name name and keyword parameters named by the var symbols.

(according to the hunchentoot documentation: http://weitz.de/hunchentoot/), so you should use a different name for the handler, for instance:

(define-easy-handler (do-new-patient :uri "/new-patient")
   (name gender height weight)
(let ((name (substitute #\space #\+ (string-trim " " name))))
  (progn (my-database:new-patient name gender height weight)
         (redirect "/success"))))