Functional Python Programming - Third Edition

 5 Higher-Order Functions

A very important feature of the functional programming paradigm is higher-order functions. We’ll look at these three varieties of higher-order functions:

• Functions that accept functions as one (or more) of their arguments

• Functions that return a function

• Functions that accept a function and return a function, a combination of the preceding two features

We’ll look at the built-in higher-order functions in this chapter. Separate from these functions, we’ll look at a few of the library modules that offer higher-order functions in later chapters after introducing the concepts here.

Functions that accept functions and create functions include complex callable classes as well as function decorators. We’ll defer consideration ...