flatten

Removes nesting from a collection

Flatten removes nesting within a collection.

[[1,2, [3,4], 5], 6, [7,8]].flatten
# => [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]

(flatten [[1 2 [3 4] 5] 6 [7 8]])
;; => (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8)

The full flattening removes all amounts of nesting. Some versions allow you to remove a limited depth of nesting with an argument

[[1,2, [3,4], 5], 6, [7,8]].flatten(1)
# => [1, 2, [3, 4], 5, 6, 7, 8]

It's fairly common to remove a single level of nesting like this after a map. So common, that there's you often see the operator flat-map to do this combo.

If you need a single-level flatten you can use flat-map to get there.

(defn flatten-1 [c]
  (mapcat #(if (coll? %) % [%]) c))

(flatten-1 [[1 2 [3 4] 5] 6 [7 8]])
;; => (1 2 [3 4] 5 6 7 8)