The concept of “anonymous functions” should be considered optional material: they are rarely used, and never needed. However, for completeness I discuss them here.

Python allows a program to create a function that has no name. The function can be assigned to a variable, and the variable can then be used as if it is a function. To create an anonymous function, you use the following syntax:

lambda <parameters>: <statement>

lambda is a keyword. <parameters> is a sequence of parameter names, separated by comma’s if there is more than one. <statement> is one single statement. The anonymous function does not need the keyword return, but the value of <statement> is used as return value.

For instance, the following code creates an anonymous function that calculates the square of its parameter. The function gets assigned to a variable f. f can then be called as a function, to calculate the squares of numbers.

f = lambda x: x*x
print( f(12) )

This code is exactly the same as the following code:

def f( x ):
    return x*x
print( f(12) )

So, if anonymous functions are no different from regular functions, and actually more limited as they can only use a single line of code, why are they included in Python? Actually, there has been going on quite a lot of debate amongst the people who create Python whether or not the lambda keyword should remain. It is part of Python because it is also part of other programming languages, in particular functional programming languages such as Lisp and Haskell, which rely on the concept of anonymous functions. But the lambda keyword in Python is not as powerful as the lambda keyword in these other languages, and, as we have seen, not really needed. A main reason that it is still part of Python is backwards compatibility and the fact that there are many Python users who like to use it.

Occasionally, anonymous functions have their uses, and can actually make programs a bit more readable. I will show an example in Chapter 13¹.