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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:
Applied to a function with one variable, the Y combinator usually does not terminate. More interesting results are obtained by applying the Y combinator to functions of two or more variables. The additional variables may be used as a counter, or index. The resulting function behaves like a while or a for loop in an imperative language.
[4]: 114 A DataFrame is a 2-dimensional data structure of rows and columns, similar to a spreadsheet, and analogous to a Python dictionary mapping column names (keys) to Series (values), with each Series sharing an index. [4]: 115 DataFrames can be concatenated together or "merged" on columns or indices in a manner similar to joins in SQL.
If-then-else flow diagram A nested if–then–else flow diagram. In computer science, conditionals (that is, conditional statements, conditional expressions and conditional constructs) are programming language constructs that perform different computations or actions or return different values depending on the value of a Boolean expression, called a condition.
The names "lambda abstraction", "lambda function", and "lambda expression" refer to the notation of function abstraction in lambda calculus, where the usual function f (x) = M would be written (λx. M), and where M is an expression that uses x. Compare to the Python syntax of lambda x: M.
The else clause in the above example is linked to the for statement, and not the inner if statement. Both Python's for and while loops support such an else clause, which is executed only if early exit of the loop has not occurred. Some languages support breaking out of nested loops; in theory circles, these are called multi-level breaks.
The term closure is often used as a synonym for anonymous function, though strictly, an anonymous function is a function literal without a name, while a closure is an instance of a function, a value, whose non-local variables have been bound either to values or to storage locations (depending on the language; see the lexical environment section below).
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 ...