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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).
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:
While the use of anonymous functions is perhaps not common with currying, it still can be used. In the above example, the function divisor generates functions with a specified divisor. The functions half and third curry the divide function with a fixed divisor. The divisor function also forms a closure by binding the variable d.
Currying provides a way for working with functions that take multiple arguments, and using them in frameworks where functions might take only one argument. For example, some analytical techniques can only be applied to functions with a single argument. Practical functions frequently take more arguments than this.
Non-local variables are the primary reason it is difficult to support nested, anonymous, higher-order and thereby first-class functions in a programming language. If the nested function or functions are (mutually) recursive, it becomes hard for the compiler to know exactly where on the call stack the non-local variable was allocated, as the frame pointer only points to the local variable of ...
Python's is operator may be used to compare object identities (comparison by reference), and comparisons may be chained—for example, a <= b <= c. Python uses and, or, and not as Boolean operators. Python has a type of expression named a list comprehension, and a more general expression named a generator expression. [78]
Meta-functions will be given that describe lambda lifting and dropping. A meta-function is a function that takes a program as a parameter. The program is data for the meta-program. The program and the meta program are at different meta-levels. The following conventions will be used to distinguish program from the meta program,
When returning a function, we are in fact returning its closure. In the C example any local variables captured by the closure will go out of scope once we return from the function that builds the closure. Forcing the closure at a later point will result in undefined behaviour, possibly corrupting the stack. This is known as the upwards funarg ...