Programming Elixir

Chapter 5Anonymous Functions

• Anonymous functions

• Pattern matching and arguments

• Higher-order functions

• Closures

• The & function literal

Elixir is a functional language, so it is no surprise that functions are a basic type.

An anonymous function is created using the fn keyword.

Think of fn…end as being a bit like the quotes that surround a string literal, except here we’re returning a function as a value, not a string. We can pass that function value to other functions. We can also invoke it, passing in arguments.

At its simplest, a function has a parameter list and a body, separated by ->.

For example, the following defines a function, binding it to the variable sum, and ...