Chapter 10. The Functools Module
Functional programming emphasizes functions as first class objects. We have many high-order functions that accept functions as arguments or return functions as results. In this chapter, we'll look at the functools
library with some functions to help us create and modify functions.
We'll look at some higher-order functions in this chapter. Earlier, we looked at higher-order functions in Chapter 5, Higher-order Functions. We'll continue to look at higher-order function techniques in Chapter 11, Decorator Design Techniques, as well.
We'll look at the following functions in this module:
@lru_cache
: This decorator can be a huge performance boost for certain types of applications.@total_ordering
: This decorator can help create rich comparison operators. However, it lets us look at the more general question of object-oriented design mixed with functional programming.partial()
: It creates a new function with some arguments applied to a...