lambda Basics

The lambda’s general form is the keyword lambda, followed by one or more arguments (exactly like the arguments list you enclose in parentheses in a def header), followed by an expression after a colon:

lambda argument1, argument2,... argumentN :expression using arguments

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Function objects returned by running lambda expressions work exactly the same as those created and assigned by defs, but there are a few differences that make lambdas useful in specialized roles:

 

 
  • lambda is an expression, not a statement. Because of this, a lambda can appear in places a def is not allowed by Python’s syntax—inside a list literal or a function call’s arguments, for example. As an expression, lambda returns a value (a new function) that can optionally be assigned a name. In contrast, the def statement always assigns the new function to the name in the header, instead of returning it as a result.
  • lambda’s body is a single expression, not a block of statements. The lambda’s body is similar to what you’d put in a def body’s return statement; you simply type the result as a naked expression, instead of explicitly returning it. Because it is limited to an expression, a lambda is less general than a def—you can only squeeze so much logic into a lambda body without using statements such as if. This is by design, to limit program nesting: lambda is designed for coding simple functions, and def handles larger tasks.

Apart from those distinctions, defs and lambdas do the same sort of work. For instance, we’ve seen how to make a function with a def statement:

>>> def func(x, y, z): return x + y + z
...
>>> func(2, 3, 4)
9

But you can achieve the same effect with a lambda expression by explicitly assigning its result to a name through which you can later call the function:

>>> f = lambda x, y, z: x + y + z
>>> f(2, 3, 4)
9

Here, f is assigned the function object the lambda expression creates; this is how def works, too, but its assignment is automatic.

Defaults work on lambda arguments, just like in a def:

>>> x = (lambda a="fee", b="fie", c="foe": a + b + c)
>>> x("wee")
'weefiefoe'

The code in a lambda body also follows the same scope lookup rules as code inside a def. lambda expressions introduce a local scope much like a nested def, which automatically sees names in enclosing functions, the module, and the built-in scope (via the LEGB rule):

>>> def knights():
...     title = 'Sir'
...     action = (lambda x: title + ' ' + x)        # Title in enclosing def
...     return action                               # Return a function
...
>>> act = knights()
>>> act('robin')
'Sir robin'

In this example, prior to Release 2.2, the value for the name title would typically have been passed in as a default argument value instead; flip back to the scopes coverage in Chapter 17 if you’ve forgotten why.