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In computer programming, an anonymous function (function literal, expression or block) is a function definition that is not bound to an identifier.Anonymous functions are often arguments being passed to higher-order functions or used for constructing the result of a higher-order function that needs to return a function. [1]
Anonymous recursion is primarily of use in allowing recursion for anonymous functions, particularly when they form closures or are used as callbacks, to avoid having to bind the name of the function. Anonymous recursion primarily consists of calling "the current function", which results in direct recursion.
An example of such a function is the function that returns 0 for all even integers, and 1 for all odd integers. In lambda calculus , from a computational point of view, applying a fixed-point combinator to an identity function or an idempotent function typically results in non-terminating computation.
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).
Nested functions can be used for unstructured control flow, by using the return statement for general unstructured control flow.This can be used for finer-grained control than is possible with other built-in features of the language – for example, it can allow early termination of a for loop if break is not available, or early termination of a nested for loop if a multi-level break or ...
A modern, abstract point of view contrasts large function spaces, which are infinite-dimensional and within which most functions are 'anonymous', with special functions picked out by properties such as symmetry, or relationship to harmonic analysis and group representations. See also List of types of functions
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The above example is an expression that evaluates to a first-class function. The symbol lambda creates an anonymous function, given a list of parameter names, x – just a single argument in this case, and an expression that is evaluated as the body of the function, x**2. Anonymous functions are sometimes called lambda expressions.