These functions are called anonymous because they are not declared in the standard manner by using the def keyword. You can use the lambda keyword to create small anonymous functions.
- Lambda forms can take any number of arguments but return just one value in the form of an expression. They cannot contain commands or multiple expressions.
- An anonymous function cannot be a direct call to print because lambda requires an expression
- Lambda functions have their own local namespace and cannot access variables other than those in their parameter list and those in the global namespace.
- Although it appears that lambda's are a one-line version of a function, they are not equivalent to inline statements in C or C++, whose purpose is by passing function stack allocation during invocation for performance reasons.
Syntax
The syntax of lambda functions contains only a single statement, which is as follows −
lambda [arg1 [,arg2,.....argn]]:expression
Example
Following is the example to show how lambda form of function works −
#!/usr/bin/python # Function definition is here sum = lambda arg1, arg2: arg1 + arg2; # Now you can call sum as a function print "Value of total : ", sum( 10, 20 ) print "Value of total : ", sum( 20, 20 )
Output
When the above code is executed, it produces the following result −
Value of total : 30 Value of total : 40