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In languages which support first-class functions and currying, map may be partially applied to lift a function that works on only one value to an element-wise equivalent that works on an entire container; for example, map square is a Haskell function which squares each element of a list.
Folds can be regarded as consistently replacing the structural components of a data structure with functions and values. Lists, for example, are built up in many functional languages from two primitives: any list is either an empty list, commonly called nil ([]), or is constructed by prefixing an element in front of another list, creating what is called a cons node ( Cons(X1,Cons(X2,Cons ...
In Python, functions are first-class objects that can be created and passed around dynamically. Python's limited support for anonymous functions is the lambda construct. An example is the anonymous function which squares its input, called with the argument of 5:
Functions are created in Python using the def keyword. In Python, you define the function as if you were calling it, by typing the function name and then the attributes required. Here is an example of a function that will print whatever is given:
Here, the list [0..] represents , x^2>3 represents the predicate, and 2*x represents the output expression.. List comprehensions give results in a defined order (unlike the members of sets); and list comprehensions may generate the members of a list in order, rather than produce the entirety of the list thus allowing, for example, the previous Haskell definition of the members of an infinite list.
In Python 3.x the range() function [28] returns a generator which computes elements of the list on demand. Elements are only generated when they are needed (e.g., when print(r[3]) is evaluated in the following example), so this is an example of lazy or deferred evaluation:
A traditional imperative program might use a loop to traverse and modify a list. A functional program, on the other hand, would probably use a higher-order "map" function that takes a function and a list, generating and returning a new list by applying the function to each list item.
In this Erlang example, the higher-order function or_else/2 takes a list of functions (Fs) and argument (X). It evaluates the function F with the argument X as argument. If the function F returns false then the next function in Fs will be evaluated. If the function F returns {false, Y} then the next function in Fs with argument Y will be