Advanced Functions

Introduction to Functional Programming

• Functional Programming (FP) is a programming paradigm.
• A Paradigm is a framework that indicates ways of computational
thinking required to solve a given problem.
• Functional programming is a subset of declarative programming
where functions are used to implement program logic for getting
solutions.
• The core element of functional programming is a function rather than
the statements to solve a given problem.
• Functional programming starts with splitting the problem into smaller
subproblems.
• The notion of “Pure functions” is unique in functional programming.
• The main requirement of functional programming is that the function
should not have side effects or functions with minimal side effects.
• Functional programming does not maintain state information. There
are two important concepts: State and Mutation.
• The function should produce the same result given the same inputs
making functionals deterministic.
Characteristics of functional programming
• Use only functions.
• Combine functions to form first-class or higher-order functions.
• Usage of recursion instead of iteration.
• No state information or side effects.
• The order of functional calls is not relevant.
• Pure functions, where pure functions are defined as functions that
have no side effects.
• Iterators over lists.
Functional Programming

Advantages Disadvantages
• Functional programming creates • Learning is a bit difficult as codes
less code with much clarity and are very compact.
unambiguity. • Not all functions are pure
• Mathematically provable. functions.
• Multiprocessing can be done. • Recursion is inefficient, and
hence FP can be in efficient at
times.
Functions as Objects
• Functions are first-class citizens in functional programming. The
terminologies of first-class citizens and higher-order functions are
interchangeable.
• First-class citizens refer to the tight integration of functions with the
programming language. Such as,
• A function can be stored in a variable.
• Function can be passed as a parameter.
• Functions can be used to manipulate collections.
• Manipulated nay data types using functions.
Illustration of a function stored in a variable
Lambda function
• Lambda function is a restricted, one-line function in python.
• Lambda are anonymous or name-less functions, as they have no
name, unlike ordinary functions.
• Lambda calculus is a cross of functional abstraction and application of
the function.
• In a way, lambda calculus promotes,
• Usage of functions only.
• No state or side effects.
• The order of evaluation is irrelevant.
Syntax of lambda function in Python

Example: write a lambda function to return a cube of a number

List Comprehensions
• There are three key Python tools used to process static sequences
and streams. These elegant tools are used to process sequences and
streams. The tools are listed below.
1. List Comprehensions
2. Iterators
3. Generators
The Syntax of list comprehension is given as follows.
The expression can be any valid Python expression, and the iterate can be any
object like,
1. List
2. Strings
3. Tuple
4. Dictionary
List comprehensions provide immense documentation value as list
comprehensions are self-documentary.
Example: Generate a list of numbers from 1 to 20. The numbers can be
generated traditionally using a range function.
Nested list comprehension
• A list comprehension inside another list comprehension in analogous
to nested for loops. Nested loops are implemented in the following
way.

• Set Comprehensions
Python supports set comprehensions similar to list comprehensions.
Dictionary Comprehensions
Dictionary Comprehensions also used curly braces.
Dictionary comprehension does not directly operate on the dictionaries but
with the items() couples with tuples to manipulate values and keys.
Dictionary Comprehension can be used to swap the keys and values in a
dictionary.
List Comprehension in Tuples
Sequences are represented by parenthesis() and commas in a tuple.
A tuple is an ordered list.
Among the several ways to create a list of tuples, one method is by using the list
comprehension and tuple() method.
List Comprehension with Sequence
Processing
• One can perform many computations on sequences. The ability to
pass a parameter and receive it makes such functions higher-order
functions.
• Some of the helpful higher-order functions are
• Map
• Filter
• Reduce
Map Function
• Map() is a built-in function in Python.
• It works as a function on all the items of a supplied iterable (list,
tuple, or set).
• The elements of a python map object are looped through since it is In
iterator.
• The map function that is used to apply every element of an iterable
object.
• The map() function takes two arguments.
1) Any python functions
2) Iterable Object
Map function
• In Python, iterables are lists, tuples, dictionaries, or sets.
• The function transforms the elements of the iterable object to give
the resultant.
• The syntax of the map() function is given as follows,
Example: To illustrate the change of case
using the Map function
 Filter Function
• The function filter() takes two inputs
1. Iterable object
2. A condition
Example: To illustrate the change of case using the filter function
 Reduce Function
• Reduce function reduces a set of values to a single number.
• For example,, given set of numbers, reduce function can reduce to a sum.
Reduce function has two arguments.
1. A function
2. A Sequence
reduce() apply a function over the series of values and returns a single value.
Iterators
• for-loops are used for iteration with objects, such as lists, sets, etc. by
default it would iterate over the whole sequences without user
significant control.
• The control of this iteration is brought by iterators.
• The iterators do provide an iterator protocol. It is a protocol that has
two methods, __iter__(or iter()) and __next__(or nect())
• The syntax of iter() is given as:
Generators
• Generators are special functions that helps to define user-defined
iterators.
• The generator is a construct that generated a dynamic sequences and
it generated an iterator.
• A generator is a function that emits one values at a time when called
upon.
• The difference between generator and list comprehensions is that
1. There is no memory cost involved in the generator.
2. These generators do not compute until they are needed. This is
called Lazy Evaluation.
Generator Expressions
• Generator expressions are the product of list comprehensions and
generator functions.
• It produces a generator as output lazily as it used the concept of lazy
evaluation.
• The syntax of generator expressions is given below.
Itertools, Special Iterators, and Generators
• Itertools is a module.
• It provides many useful functions and generators with a wealth of
built-in functions, such as enum() and sum().
• The enumerate() method keeps track of the elements included in a
list, tuple, set or other iterable data structure.
• Enumerate allows to track the item along with the index.
Recursion
• Functional programming prefer recursion over iteration.
• Loops maintain the states and involve mutable variables.
• Recursion is a useful functional programming technique that solves
the problem using a technique called problem reduction.
• A function is called recursive because it calls by itself. A recursive
program is one where recursive functions are used as an alternative
for iteration.
• Recursive algorithms have two parts.
1. First part of recursive program is one or more base cases. Base
cases provide trivial solutions and serve as termination conditions,
The base problem is solved directly.
2. The second part is an inductive step. This step reduces the problem
to a smaller version. This is called reducing step.
Example: Recursive program to find the factorial of a number.
Closed Functions and Function Annotators or
Decorators
• One can add a function into another function.
• This function is known as an inner function or embedded function.
• The other function is known as the outer function. The advantage of
the inner function is that it can have access to the variables that are
defined and available in the outer function.
1. The inner function cannot be accessed by the outside function.
2. The outer function can return the reference of the inner function.
Using the reference , one can execute the inner function.
3. An inner function can serve as a helper function that can help
another function.
Function Annotators
• These are meta-information that given for the benefit of users
especially third-party python packages.
• These annotations are executed only in compline time and not used
for run time
• Example of functional annotator.