Learning Functional Programming in Go

The difference between an anonymous function and a closure

Let's look at a few simple code examples to understand the difference between an anonymous function and a closure.

Here's a typical named function:

func namedGreeting(name string) {   fmt.Printf("Hey %s!n", name)}

The following is an example of the anonymous function:

func anonymousGreeting() func(string) {     return func(name string) {            fmt.Printf("Hey %s!n", name)     }}

Now, let's call them both and call an anonymous inline function to say Hey to Cindy:

func main() {   namedGreeting("Alice")   greet := anonymousGreeting()   greet("Bob")   func(name string) {      fmt.Printf("Hello %s!n", name)   }("Cindy")}

The output will be as follows:

Hello Alice!Hello Bob!Hello Cindy!

Now, let's look at a closure named ...