February 2006
Intermediate to advanced
648 pages
14h 53m
English
Content preview from Python: Essential Reference, Third Edition
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Chapter 6. Functions and Functional Programming
MOST SUBSTANTIAL PROGRAMS ARE BROKEN UP into functions for better modularity and ease of maintenance. Python makes it easy to define functions, but borrows a number of ideas from functional programming languages that simplify certain tasks. This chapter describes functions, anonymous functions, generators, and functional programming features, as well as the eval() and execfile() functions and the exec statement. It also describes list comprehensions, a powerful list-construction technique.