10
The Functools Module

Functional programming considers functions to be first-class objects. We’ve seen several higher-order functions that accept functions as arguments or return functions as results. In this chapter, we’ll look at the functools library, which contains some tools to help us implement some common functional design patterns.

We’ll look at some higher-order functions. This extends the material from Chapter 5, Higher-Order Functions. We’ll continue looking at higher-order function techniques in Chapter 12, Decorator Design Techniques, as well.

We’ll look at the following functions in this module:

• @cache and @lru_cache: These decorators can be a huge performance boost for certain types of applications.

• @total_ordering: This decorator can help create rich comparison operators. Additionally, it lets us look at the more general question of object-oriented design mixed with functional programming.

• partial(): This function creates...