Functional programming with Python

To work with lists many c/c++ programmer use a simple for-loop. I will try to explain how this can be made a little bit easier. For that I use the self-explaining script language python.

Here is a simple example to filter all odd integers from a list in simple python 2.x syntax.

The function call will return a list containing only odd integers (you can use the result of the modulo operation directly without comparing with 1). Try it directly on a interactive python console (as an applet on secapps.com).

try it functional

The function filter_odd could be a more generic method, if the condition could be a variable or used as a parameter:

We can define a condition as a function and use it as a parameter in the generic_filter implementation to filter the values of list myList. Ok, you don't have to define a generic filter function, python offers the filter function in the standard language.

The new implementation does not say what to do, it say how to use the condition on a list and has much less code compared to first example.

Passing a function as a parameter is a key aspect of functional programming. But the condition_odd function will only be used for the line with the filter call. The next step will show you, how to use this function parameter without defining it separately.

The first parameter is the lambda construct: Create a temporary, anonymous function with x as parameter and return the result of the term "x % 2 == 1". I don't have to define a function and I can use the filter in one line. Save namespace with one-time functions and code lines.

list comprehension

One-line solutions are fine to write short code, but it also has to be readable. If the reader doesn't know what filter and lambda means, it can be confusing.

An other alternative for the one-line filter solution, and more confusing in python, is list comprehension. You can write the above example:

The result contains items from the constant list, filtered with the term in the if-condition. [Updated] You have to use the exact syntax, not the simple variant like filter.

more functional helper: map and reduce

There are some other list functions. First the map function with calls for every item in the list a function. In a example we will double every integer from the list. This could also be written as a list comprehension.

Second function is reduce. It get a function and a list as parameter and will call the function with the first two items from the list. Then the result and the next item will be computed and so on. A simple exapmle will calculate the sum of a number list:

This simple example can also resolved with the build-in sum function.

two examples

Now we will try some real world examples - project eulers first problem: Find the sum of all the multiples of 3 or 5 below 1000. Simply to resolve with a for-loop:

1. the condition term is x%3==0 or x%5==0
2. filter the values beetween 0 and 1000
3. calculate the sum

But we want to do it with an one-liner, with functional programming or a list comprehension:

The second line show a shorter version with sum and a little bit boolean algebra but it will not so clear readable.

As a second example filter all persons who older than 18:

summary

Here the summary with the python doc-strings to the new learned functions:

filter(function or None, sequence) -> list, tuple, or string

Return those items of sequence for which function(item) is true. If
function is None, return the items that are true. If sequence is a tuple
or string, return the same type, else return a list.

map(function, sequence[, sequence, ...]) -> list

Return a list of the results of applying the function to the items of
the argument sequence(s). If more than one sequence is given, the
function is called with an argument list consisting of the corresponding
item of each sequence, substituting None for missing values when not all
sequences have the same length. If the function is None, return a list of
the items of the sequence (or a list of tuples if more than one sequence).

reduce(function, sequence[, initial]) -> value

Apply a function of two arguments cumulatively to the items of a sequence,
from left to right, so as to reduce the sequence to a single value.
For example, reduce(lambda x, y: x+y, [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) calculates
((((1+2)+3)+4)+5). If initial is present, it is placed before the items
of the sequence in the calculation, and serves as a default when the
sequence is empty.

lambda - syntax

normal function definition:

def name(arguments):
  return expression

anonymous lambda function definition:

lambda arguments: expression

[Updated]: filter and map are still in python 3000 in the iterator variant, the reduce-function is moved in the functools module.

• Origins of Python's "Functional" Features
• Natural Language Processing with Python
• Python 3 for Absolute Beginners (Expert's Voice in Open Source)