How to Use Python Lambda Functions

History

Alonzo Church formalized lambda calculus, a language based on pure abstraction, in the 1930s. Lambda functions are also referred to as lambda abstractions, a direct reference to the abstraction model of Alonzo Church’s original creation.

Lambda calculus can encode any computation. It is Turing complete, but contrary to the concept of a Turing machine, it is pure and does not keep any state.

Functional languages get their origin in mathematical logic and lambda calculus, while imperative programming languages embrace the state-based model of computation invented by Alan Turing. The two models of computation, lambda calculus and Turing machines, can be translated into each another. This equivalence is known as the Church-Turing hypothesis.

Functional languages directly inherit the lambda calculus philosophy, adopting a declarative approach of programming that emphasizes abstraction, data transformation, composition, and purity (no state and no side effects). Examples of functional languages include Haskell, Lisp, or Erlang.

By contrast, the Turing Machine led to imperative programming found in languages like Fortran, C, or Python.

The imperative style consists of programming with statements, driving the flow of the program step by step with detailed instructions. This approach promotes mutation and requires managing state.

The separation in both families presents some nuances, as some functional languages incorporate imperative features, like OCaml, while functional features have been permeating the imperative family of languages in particular with the introduction of lambda functions in Java, or Python.

Python is not inherently a functional language, but it adopted some functional concepts early on. In January 1994, map(), filter(), reduce(), and the lambda operator were added to the language.

First Example

Here are a few examples to give you an appetite for some Python code, functional style.

The identity function, a function that returns its argument, is expressed with a standard Python function definition using the keyword def as follows:

>>> def identity(x):
...     return x

identity() takes an argument x and returns it upon invocation.

In contrast, if you use a Python lambda construction, you get the following:

>>> lambda x: x

In the example above, the expression is composed of:

• The keyword: lambda
• A bound variable: x
• A body: x

You can write a slightly more elaborated example, a function that adds 1 to an argument, as follows:

>>> lambda x: x + 1

You can apply the function above to an argument by surrounding the function and its argument with parentheses:

>>> (lambda x: x + 1)(2)
3

Reduction is a lambda calculus strategy to compute the value of the expression. In the current example, it consists of replacing the bound variable x with the argument 2:

(lambda x: x + 1)(2) = lambda 2: 2 + 1
                     = 2 + 1
                     = 3

Because a lambda function is an expression, it can be named. Therefore you could write the previous code as follows:

>>> add_one = lambda x: x + 1
>>> add_one(2)
3

The above lambda function is equivalent to writing this:

def add_one(x):
    return x + 1

These functions all take a single argument. You may have noticed that, in the definition of the lambdas, the arguments don’t have parentheses around them. Multi-argument functions (functions that take more than one argument) are expressed in Python lambdas by listing arguments and separating them with a comma (,) but without surrounding them with parentheses:

>>> full_name = lambda first, last: f'Full name: {first.title()} {last.title()}'
>>> full_name('guido', 'van rossum')
'Full name: Guido Van Rossum'

The lambda function assigned to full_name takes two arguments and returns a string interpolating the two parameters first and last. As expected, the definition of the lambda lists the arguments with no parentheses, whereas calling the function is done exactly like a normal Python function, with parentheses surrounding the arguments.

Functions

At this point, you may wonder what fundamentally distinguishes a lambda function bound to a variable from a regular function with a single return line: under the surface, almost nothing. Let’s verify how Python sees a function built with a single return statement versus a function constructed as an expression (lambda).

The dis module exposes functions to analyze Python bytecode generated by the Python compiler:

>>> import dis
>>> add = lambda x, y: x + y
>>> type(add)
<class 'function'>
>>> dis.dis(add)
  1           0 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
              2 LOAD_FAST                1 (y)
              4 BINARY_ADD
              6 RETURN_VALUE
>>> add
<function <lambda> at 0x7f30c6ce9ea0>

You can see that dis() expose a readable version of the Python bytecode allowing the inspection of the low-level instructions that the Python interpreter will use while executing the program.

Now see it with a regular function object:

>>> import dis
>>> def add(x, y): return x + y
>>> type(add)
<class 'function'>
>>> dis.dis(add)
  1           0 LOAD_FAST                0 (x)
              2 LOAD_FAST                1 (y)
              4 BINARY_ADD
              6 RETURN_VALUE
>>> add
<function add at 0x7f30c6ce9f28>

The bytecode interpreted by Python is the same for both functions. But you may notice that the naming is different: the function name is add for a function defined with def, whereas the Python lambda function is seen as lambda.

Traceback

You saw in the previous section that, in the context of the lambda function, Python did not provide the name of the function, but only <lambda>. This can be a limitation to consider when an exception occurs, and a traceback shows only <lambda>:

>>> div_zero = lambda x: x / 0
>>> div_zero(2)
Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <lambda>
ZeroDivisionError: division by zero

The traceback of an exception raised while a lambda function is executed only identifies the function causing the exception as <lambda>.

Here’s the same exception raised by a normal function:

>>> def div_zero(x): return x / 0
>>> div_zero(2)
Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in div_zero
ZeroDivisionError: division by zero

The normal function causes a similar error but results in a more precise traceback because it gives the function name, div_zero.

Syntax

As you saw in the previous sections, a lambda form presents syntactic distinctions from a normal function. In particular, a lambda function has the following characteristics:

• It can only contain expressions and can’t include statements in its body.
• It is written as a single line of execution.
• It does not support type annotations.
• It can be immediately invoked (IIFE).

No Statements

A lambda function can’t contain any statements. In a lambda function, statements like return, pass, assert, or raise will raise a SyntaxError exception. Here’s an example of adding assert to the body of a lambda:

>>> (lambda x: assert x == 2)(2)
  File "<input>", line 1
    (lambda x: assert x == 2)(2)
                    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

This contrived example intended to assert that parameter x had a value of 2. But, the interpreter identifies a SyntaxError while parsing the code that involves the statement assert in the body of the lambda.

Single Expression

In contrast to a normal function, a Python lambda function is a single expression. Although, in the body of a lambda, you can spread the expression over several lines using parentheses or a multiline string, it remains a single expression:

>>> (lambda x:
... (x % 2 and 'odd' or 'even'))(3)
'odd'

The example above returns the string 'odd' when the lambda argument is odd, and 'even' when the argument is even. It spreads across two lines because it is contained in a set of parentheses, but it remains a single expression.

Type Annotations

If you’ve started adopting type hinting, which is now available in Python, then you have another good reason to prefer normal functions over Python lambda functions. Check out Python Type Checking (Guide) to get learn more about Python type hints and type checking. In a lambda function, there is no equivalent for the following:

def full_name(first: str, last: str) -> str:
    return f'{first.title()} {last.title()}'

Any type error with full_name() can be caught by tools like mypy or pyre, whereas a SyntaxError with the equivalent lambda function is raised at runtime:

>>> lambda first: str, last: str: first.title() + " " + last.title() -> str
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    lambda first: str, last: str: first.title() + " " + last.title() -> str

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Like trying to include a statement in a lambda, adding type annotation immediately results in a SyntaxError at runtime.

IIFE

You’ve already seen several examples of immediately invoked function execution:

>>> (lambda x: x * x)(3)
9

Outside of the Python interpreter, this feature is probably not used in practice. It’s a direct consequence of a lambda function being callable as it is defined. For example, this allows you to pass the definition of a Python lambda expression to a higher-order function like map(), filter(), or functools.reduce(), or to a key function.

Arguments

Like a normal function object defined with def, Python lambda expressions support all the different ways of passing arguments. This includes:

• Positional arguments
• Named arguments (sometimes called keyword arguments)
• Variable list of arguments (often referred to as varargs)
• Variable list of keyword arguments
• Keyword-only arguments

The following examples illustrate options open to you in order to pass arguments to lambda expressions:

>>> (lambda x, y, z: x + y + z)(1, 2, 3)
6
>>> (lambda x, y, z=3: x + y + z)(1, 2)
6
>>> (lambda x, y, z=3: x + y + z)(1, y=2)
6
>>> (lambda *args: sum(args))(1,2,3)
6
>>> (lambda **kwargs: sum(kwargs.values()))(one=1, two=2, three=3)
6
>>> (lambda x, *, y=0, z=0: x + y + z)(1, y=2, z=3)
6

Decorators

In Python, a decorator is the implementation of a pattern that allows adding a behavior to a function or a class. It is usually expressed with the @decorator syntax prefixing a function. Here’s a contrived example:

def some_decorator(f):
    def wraps(*args):
        print(f"Calling function '{f.__name__}'")
        return f(args)
    return wraps

@some_decorator
def decorated_function(x):
    print(f"With argument '{x}'")

In the example above, some_decorator() is a function that adds a behavior to decorated_function(), so that invoking decorated_function("Python") results in the following output:

Calling function 'decorated_function'
With argument 'Python'

decorated_function() only prints With argument 'Python', but the decorator adds an extra behavior that also prints Calling function 'decorated_function'.

A decorator can be applied to a lambda. Although it’s not possible to decorate a lambda with the @decorator syntax, a decorator is just a function, so it can call the lambda function:

 1# Defining a decorator
 2def trace(f):
 3    def wrap(*args, **kwargs):
 4        print(f"[TRACE] func: {f.__name__}, args: {args}, kwargs: {kwargs}")
 5        return f(*args, **kwargs)
 6
 7    return wrap
 8
 9# Applying decorator to a function
10@trace
11def add_two(x):
12    return x + 2
13
14# Calling the decorated function
15add_two(3)
16
17# Applying decorator to a lambda
18print((trace(lambda x: x ** 2))(3))

add_two(), decorated with @trace on line 11, is invoked with argument 3 on line 15. By contrast, on line 18, a lambda function is immediately involved and embedded in a call to trace(), the decorator. When you execute the code above you obtain the following:

[TRACE] func: add_two, args: (3,), kwargs: {}
[TRACE] func: <lambda>, args: (3,), kwargs: {}
9

See how, as you’ve already seen, the name of the lambda function appears as <lambda>, whereas add_two is clearly identified for the normal function.

Decorating the lambda function this way could be useful for debugging purposes, possibly to debug the behavior of a lambda function used in the context of a higher-order function or a key function. Let’s see an example with map():

list(map(trace(lambda x: x*2), range(3)))

The first argument of map() is a lambda that multiplies its argument by 2. This lambda is decorated with trace(). When executed, the example above outputs the following:

[TRACE] Calling <lambda> with args (0,) and kwargs {}
[TRACE] Calling <lambda> with args (1,) and kwargs {}
[TRACE] Calling <lambda> with args (2,) and kwargs {}
[0, 2, 4]

The result [0, 2, 4] is a list obtained from multiplying each element of range(3). For now, consider range(3) equivalent to the list [0, 1, 2].

You will be exposed to map() in more details in Map.

A lambda can also be a decorator, but it’s not recommended. If you find yourself needing to do this, consult PEP 8, Programming Recommendations.

For more on Python decorators, check out Primer on Python Decorators.

Closure

A closure is a function where every free variable, everything except parameters, used in that function is bound to a specific value defined in the enclosing scope of that function. In effect, closures define the environment in which they run, and so can be called from anywhere.

The concepts of lambdas and closures are not necessarily related, although lambda functions can be closures in the same way that normal functions can also be closures. Some languages have special constructs for closure or lambda (for example, Groovy with an anonymous block of code as Closure object), or a lambda expression (for example, Java Lambda expression with a limited option for closure).

Here’s a closure constructed with a normal Python function:

 1def outer_func(x):
 2    y = 4
 3    def inner_func(z):
 4        print(f"x = {x}, y = {y}, z = {z}")
 5        return x + y + z
 6    return inner_func
 7
 8for i in range(3):
 9    closure = outer_func(i)
10    print(f"closure({i+5}) = {closure(i+5)}")

outer_func() returns inner_func(), a nested function that computes the sum of three arguments:

• x is passed as an argument to outer_func().
• y is a variable local to outer_func().
• z is an argument passed to inner_func().

To test the behavior of outer_func() and inner_func(), outer_func() is invoked three times in a for loop that prints the following:

x = 0, y = 4, z = 5
closure(5) = 9
x = 1, y = 4, z = 6
closure(6) = 11
x = 2, y = 4, z = 7
closure(7) = 13

On line 9 of the code, inner_func() returned by the invocation of outer_func() is bound to the name closure. On line 5, inner_func() captures x and y because it has access to its embedding environment, such that upon invocation of the closure, it is able to operate on the two free variables x and y.

Similarly, a lambda can also be a closure. Here’s the same example with a Python lambda function:

 1def outer_func(x):
 2    y = 4
 3    return lambda z: x + y + z
 4
 5for i in range(3):
 6    closure = outer_func(i)
 7    print(f"closure({i+5}) = {closure(i+5)}")

When you execute the code above, you obtain the following output:

closure(5) = 9
closure(6) = 11
closure(7) = 13

On line 6, outer_func() returns a lambda and assigns it to to the variable closure. On line 3, the body of the lambda function references x and y. The variable y is available at definition time, whereas x is defined at runtime when outer_func() is invoked.

In this situation, both the normal function and the lambda behave similarly. In the next section, you’ll see a situation where the behavior of a lambda can be deceptive due to its evaluation time (definition time vs runtime).

Evaluation Time

In some situations involving loops, the behavior of a Python lambda function as a closure may be counterintuitive. It requires understanding when free variables are bound in the context of a lambda. The following examples demonstrate the difference when using a regular function vs using a Python lambda.

Test the scenario first using a regular function:

 1>>> def wrap(n):
 2...     def f():
 3...         print(n)
 4...     return f
 5...
 6>>> numbers = 'one', 'two', 'three'
 7>>> funcs = []
 8>>> for n in numbers:
 9...     funcs.append(wrap(n))
10...
11>>> for f in funcs:
12...     f()
13...
14one
15two
16three

In a normal function, n is evaluated at definition time, on line 9, when the function is added to the list: funcs.append(wrap(n)).

Now, with the implementation of the same logic with a lambda function, observe the unexpected behavior:

 1>>> numbers = 'one', 'two', 'three'
 2>>> funcs = []
 3>>> for n in numbers:
 4...     funcs.append(lambda: print(n))
 5...
 6>>> for f in funcs:
 7...     f()
 8...
 9three
10three
11three

The unexpected result occurs because the free variable n, as implemented, is bound at the execution time of the lambda expression. The Python lambda function on line 4 is a closure that captures n, a free variable bound at runtime. At runtime, while invoking the function f on line 7, the value of n is three.

To overcome this issue, you can assign the free variable at definition time as follows:

 1>>> numbers = 'one', 'two', 'three'
 2>>> funcs = []
 3>>> for n in numbers:
 4...     funcs.append(lambda n=n: print(n))
 5...
 6>>> for f in funcs:
 7...     f()
 8...
 9one
10two
11three

A Python lambda function behaves like a normal function in regard to arguments. Therefore, a lambda parameter can be initialized with a default value: the parameter n takes the outer n as a default value. The Python lambda function could have been written as lambda x=n: print(x) and have the same result.

The Python lambda function is invoked without any argument on line 7, and it uses the default value n set at definition time.

Testing Lambdas

Python lambdas can be tested similarly to regular functions. It’s possible to use both unittest and doctest.

unittest

The unittest module handles Python lambda functions similarly to regular functions:

import unittest

addtwo = lambda x: x + 2

class LambdaTest(unittest.TestCase):
    def test_add_two(self):
        self.assertEqual(addtwo(2), 4)

    def test_add_two_point_two(self):
        self.assertEqual(addtwo(2.2), 4.2)

    def test_add_three(self):
        # Should fail
        self.assertEqual(addtwo(3), 6)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main(verbosity=2)

LambdaTest defines a test case with three test methods, each of them exercising a test scenario for addtwo() implemented as a lambda function. The execution of the Python file lambda_unittest.py that contains LambdaTest produces the following:

$ python lambda_unittest.py
test_add_three (__main__.LambdaTest) ... FAIL
test_add_two (__main__.LambdaTest) ... ok
test_add_two_point_two (__main__.LambdaTest) ... ok

======================================================================
FAIL: test_add_three (__main__.LambdaTest)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "lambda_unittest.py", line 18, in test_add_three
    self.assertEqual(addtwo(3), 6)
AssertionError: 5 != 6

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 3 tests in 0.001s

FAILED (failures=1)

As expected, we have two successful test cases and one failure for test_add_three: the result is 5, but the expected result was 6. This failure is due to an intentional mistake in the test case. Changing the expected result from 6 to 5 will satisfy all the tests for LambdaTest.

doctest

The doctest module extracts interactive Python code from docstring to execute tests. Although the syntax of Python lambda functions does not support a typical docstring, it is possible to assign a string to the __doc__ element of a named lambda:

addtwo = lambda x: x + 2
addtwo.__doc__ = """Add 2 to a number.
    >>> addtwo(2)
    4
    >>> addtwo(2.2)
    4.2
    >>> addtwo(3) # Should fail
    6
    """

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import doctest
    doctest.testmod(verbose=True)

The doctest in the doc comment of lambda addtwo() describes the same test cases as in the previous section.

When you execute the tests via doctest.testmod(), you get the following:

$ python lambda_doctest.py
Trying:
    addtwo(2)
Expecting:
    4
ok
Trying:
    addtwo(2.2)
Expecting:
    4.2
ok
Trying:
    addtwo(3) # Should fail
Expecting:
    6
**********************************************************************
File "lambda_doctest.py", line 16, in __main__.addtwo
Failed example:
    addtwo(3) # Should fail
Expected:
    6
Got:
    5
1 items had no tests:
    __main__
**********************************************************************
1 items had failures:
   1 of   3 in __main__.addtwo
3 tests in 2 items.
2 passed and 1 failed.
***Test Failed*** 1 failures.

The failed test results from the same failure explained in the execution of the unit tests in the previous section.

You can add a docstring to a Python lambda via an assignment to __doc__ to document a lambda function. Although possible, the Python syntax better accommodates docstring for normal functions than lambda functions.

For a comprehensive overview of unit testing in Python, you may want to refer to Getting Started With Testing in Python.

Raising an Exception

Trying to raise an exception in a Python lambda should make you think twice. There are some clever ways to do so, but even something like the following is better to avoid:

>>> def throw(ex): raise ex
>>> (lambda: throw(Exception('Something bad happened')))()
Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <lambda>
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in throw
Exception: Something bad happened

Because a statement is not syntactically correct in a Python lambda body, the workaround in the example above consists of abstracting the statement call with a dedicated function throw(). Using this type of workaround should be avoided. If you encounter this type of code, you should consider refactoring the code to use a regular function.

Cryptic Style

As in any programming languages, you will find Python code that can be difficult to read because of the style used. Lambda functions, due to their conciseness, can be conducive to writing code that is difficult to read.

The following lambda example contains several bad style choices:

>>> (lambda _: list(map(lambda _: _ // 2, _)))([1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10])
[0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5]

The underscore (_) refers to a variable that you don’t need to refer to explicitly. But in this example, three _ refer to different variables. An initial upgrade to this lambda code could be to name the variables:

>>> (lambda some_list: list(map(lambda n: n // 2,
                                some_list)))([1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10])
[0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5]

Admittedly, it’s still difficult to read. By still taking advantage of a lambda, a regular function would go a long way to render this code more readable, spreading the logic over a few lines and function calls:

>>> def div_items(some_list):
      div_by_two = lambda n: n // 2
      return map(div_by_two, some_list)
>>> list(div_items([1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10])))
[0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5]

This is still not optimal but shows you a possible path to make code, and Python lambda functions in particular, more readable. In Alternatives to Lambdas, you’ll learn to replace map() and lambda with list comprehensions or generator expressions. This will drastically improve the readability of the code.

Python Classes

You can but should not write class methods as Python lambda functions. The following example is perfectly legal Python code but exhibits unconventional Python code relying on lambda. For example, instead of implementing __str__ as a regular function, it uses a lambda. Similarly, brand and year are properties also implemented with lambda functions, instead of regular functions or decorators:

class Car:
    """Car with methods as lambda functions."""
    def __init__(self, brand, year):
        self.brand = brand
        self.year = year

    brand = property(lambda self: getattr(self, '_brand'),
                     lambda self, value: setattr(self, '_brand', value))

    year = property(lambda self: getattr(self, '_year'),
                    lambda self, value: setattr(self, '_year', value))

    __str__ = lambda self: f'{self.brand} {self.year}'  # 1: error E731

    honk = lambda self: print('Honk!')     # 2: error E731

Running a tool like flake8, a style guide enforcement tool, will display the following errors for __str__ and honk:

E731 do not assign a lambda expression, use a def

Although flake8 doesn’t point out an issue for the usage of the Python lambda functions in the properties, they are difficult to read and prone to error because of the usage of multiple strings like '_brand' and '_year'.

Proper implementation of __str__ would be expected to be as follows:

def __str__(self):
    return f'{self.brand} {self.year}'

brand would be written as follows:

@property
def brand(self):
    return self._brand

@brand.setter
def brand(self, value):
    self._brand = value

As a general rule, in the context of code written in Python, prefer regular functions over lambda expressions. Nonetheless, there are cases that benefit from lambda syntax, as you will see in the next section.

Classic Functional Constructs

Lambda functions are regularly used with the built-in functions map() and filter(), as well as functools.reduce(), exposed in the module functools. The following three examples are respective illustrations of using those functions with lambda expressions as companions:

>>> list(map(lambda x: x.upper(), ['cat', 'dog', 'cow']))
['CAT', 'DOG', 'COW']
>>> list(filter(lambda x: 'o' in x, ['cat', 'dog', 'cow']))
['dog', 'cow']
>>> from functools import reduce
>>> reduce(lambda acc, x: f'{acc} | {x}', ['cat', 'dog', 'cow'])
'cat | dog | cow'

You may have to read code resembling the examples above, albeit with more relevant data. For that reason, it’s important to recognize those constructs. Nevertheless, those constructs have equivalent alternatives that are considered more Pythonic. In Alternatives to Lambdas, you’ll learn how to convert higher-order functions and their accompanying lambdas into other more idiomatic forms.

Key Functions

Key functions in Python are higher-order functions that take a parameter key as a named argument. key receives a function that can be a lambda. This function directly influences the algorithm driven by the key function itself. Here are some key functions:

• sort(): list method
• sorted(), min(), max(): built-in functions
• nlargest() and nsmallest(): in the Heap queue algorithm module heapq

Imagine that you want to sort a list of IDs represented as strings. Each ID is the concatenation of the string id and a number. Sorting this list with the built-in function sorted(), by default, uses a lexicographic order as the elements in the list are strings.

To influence the sorting execution, you can assign a lambda to the named argument key, such that the sorting will use the number associated with the ID:

>>> ids = ['id1', 'id2', 'id30', 'id3', 'id22', 'id100']
>>> print(sorted(ids)) # Lexicographic sort
['id1', 'id100', 'id2', 'id22', 'id3', 'id30']
>>> sorted_ids = sorted(ids, key=lambda x: int(x[2:])) # Integer sort
>>> print(sorted_ids)
['id1', 'id2', 'id3', 'id22', 'id30', 'id100']

UI Frameworks

UI frameworks like Tkinter, wxPython, or .NET Windows Forms with IronPython take advantage of lambda functions for mapping actions in response to UI events.

The naive Tkinter program below demonstrates the usage of a lambda assigned to the command of the Reverse button:

import tkinter as tk
import sys

window = tk.Tk()
window.grid_columnconfigure(0, weight=1)
window.title("Lambda")
window.geometry("300x100")
label = tk.Label(window, text="Lambda Calculus")
label.grid(column=0, row=0)
button = tk.Button(
    window,
    text="Reverse",
    command=lambda: label.configure(text=label.cget("text")[::-1]),
)
button.grid(column=0, row=1)
window.mainloop()

Clicking the button Reverse fires an event that triggers the lambda function, changing the label from Lambda Calculus to suluclaC adbmaL*:

Both wxPython and IronPython on the .NET platform share a similar approach for handling events. Note that lambda is one way to handle firing events, but a function may be used for the same purpose. It ends up being self-contained and less verbose to use a lambda when the amount of code needed is very short.

To explore wxPython, check out How to Build a Python GUI Application With wxPython.

Python Interpreter

When you’re playing with Python code in the interactive interpreter, Python lambda functions are often a blessing. It’s easy to craft a quick one-liner function to explore some snippets of code that will never see the light of day outside of the interpreter. The lambdas written in the interpreter, for the sake of speedy discovery, are like scrap paper that you can throw away after use.

timeit

In the same spirit as the experimentation in the Python interpreter, the module timeit provides functions to time small code fragments. timeit.timeit() in particular can be called directly, passing some Python code in a string. Here’s an example:

>>> from timeit import timeit
>>> timeit("factorial(999)", "from math import factorial", number=10)
0.0013087529951008037

When the statement is passed as a string, timeit() needs the full context. In the example above, this is provided by the second argument that sets up the environment needed by the main function to be timed. Not doing so would raise a NameError exception.

Another approach is to use a lambda:

>>> from math import factorial
>>> timeit(lambda: factorial(999), number=10)
0.0012704220062005334

This solution is cleaner, more readable, and quicker to type in the interpreter. Although the execution time was slightly less for the lambda version, executing the functions again may show a slight advantage for the string version. The execution time of the setup is excluded from the overall execution time and shouldn’t have any impact on the result.

Monkey Patching

For testing, it’s sometimes necessary to rely on repeatable results, even if during the normal execution of a given software, the corresponding results are expected to differ, or even be totally random.

Let’s say you want to test a function that, at runtime, handles random values. But, during the testing execution, you need to assert against predictable values in a repeatable manner. The following example shows how, with a lambda function, monkey patching can help you:

from contextlib import contextmanager
import secrets

def gen_token():
    """Generate a random token."""
    return f'TOKEN_{secrets.token_hex(8)}'

@contextmanager
def mock_token():
    """Context manager to monkey patch the secrets.token_hex
    function during testing.
    """
    default_token_hex = secrets.token_hex
    secrets.token_hex = lambda _: 'feedfacecafebeef'
    yield
    secrets.token_hex = default_token_hex

def test_gen_token():
    """Test the random token."""
    with mock_token():
        assert gen_token() == f"TOKEN_{'feedfacecafebeef'}"

test_gen_token()

A context manager helps with insulating the operation of monkey patching a function from the standard library (secrets, in this example). The lambda function assigned to secrets.token_hex() substitutes the default behavior by returning a static value.

This allows testing any function depending on token_hex() in a predictable fashion. Prior to exiting from the context manager, the default behavior of token_hex() is reestablished to eliminate any unexpected side effects that would affect other areas of the testing that may depend on the default behavior of token_hex().

Unit test frameworks like unittest and pytest take this concept to a higher level of sophistication.

With pytest, still using a lambda function, the same example becomes more elegant and concise :

import secrets

def gen_token():
    return f'TOKEN_{secrets.token_hex(8)}'

def test_gen_token(monkeypatch):
    monkeypatch.setattr('secrets.token_hex', lambda _: 'feedfacecafebeef')
    assert gen_token() == f"TOKEN_{'feedfacecafebeef'}"

With the pytest monkeypatch fixture, secrets.token_hex() is overwritten with a lambda that will return a deterministic value, feedfacecafebeef, allowing to validate the test. The pytest monkeypatch fixture allows you to control the scope of the override. In the example above, invoking secrets.token_hex() in subsequent tests, without using monkey patching, would execute the normal implementation of this function.

Executing the pytest test gives the following result:

$ pytest test_token.py -v
============================= test session starts ==============================
platform linux -- Python 3.7.2, pytest-4.3.0, py-1.8.0, pluggy-0.9.0
cachedir: .pytest_cache
rootdir: /home/andre/AB/tools/bpython, inifile:
collected 1 item

test_token.py::test_gen_token PASSED                                     [100%]

=========================== 1 passed in 0.01 seconds ===========================

The test passes as we validated that the gen_token() was exercised, and the results were the expected ones in the context of the test.

Map

The built-in function map() takes a function as a first argument and applies it to each of the elements of its second argument, an iterable. Examples of iterables are strings, lists, and tuples. For more information on iterables and iterators, check out Iterables and Iterators.

map() returns an iterator corresponding to the transformed collection. As an example, if you wanted to transform a list of strings to a new list with each string capitalized, you could use map(), as follows:

>>> list(map(lambda x: x.capitalize(), ['cat', 'dog', 'cow']))
['Cat', 'Dog', 'Cow']

You need to invoke list() to convert the iterator returned by map() into an expanded list that can be displayed in the Python shell interpreter.

Using a list comprehension eliminates the need for defining and invoking the lambda function:

>>> [x.capitalize() for x in ['cat', 'dog', 'cow']]
['Cat', 'Dog', 'Cow']

Filter

The built-in function filter(), another classic functional construct, can be converted into a list comprehension. It takes a predicate as a first argument and an iterable as a second argument. It builds an iterator containing all the elements of the initial collection that satisfies the predicate function. Here’s an example that filters all the even numbers in a given list of integers:

>>> even = lambda x: x%2 == 0
>>> list(filter(even, range(11)))
[0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10]

Note that filter() returns an iterator, hence the need to invoke the built-in type list that constructs a list given an iterator.

The implementation leveraging the list comprehension construct gives the following:

>>> [x for x in range(11) if x%2 == 0]
[0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10]

Reduce

Since Python 3, reduce() has gone from a built-in function to a functools module function. As map() and filter(), its first two arguments are respectively a function and an iterable. It may also take an initializer as a third argument that is used as the initial value of the resulting accumulator. For each element of the iterable, reduce() applies the function and accumulates the result that is returned when the iterable is exhausted.

To apply reduce() to a list of pairs and calculate the sum of the first item of each pair, you could write this:

>>> import functools
>>> pairs = [(1, 'a'), (2, 'b'), (3, 'c')]
>>> functools.reduce(lambda acc, pair: acc + pair[0], pairs, 0)
6

A more idiomatic approach using a generator expression, as an argument to sum() in the example, is the following:

>>> pairs = [(1, 'a'), (2, 'b'), (3, 'c')]
>>> sum(x[0] for x in pairs)
6

A slightly different and possibly cleaner solution removes the need to explicitly access the first element of the pair and instead use unpacking:

>>> pairs = [(1, 'a'), (2, 'b'), (3, 'c')]
>>> sum(x for x, _ in pairs)
6

The use of underscore (_) is a Python convention indicating that you can ignore the second value of the pair.

sum() takes a unique argument, so the generator expression does not need to be in parentheses.