[Python-ideas] Proposal for function expressions

[Nick Coghlan]

Terry Reedy wrote:
> Chris Perkins wrote:
>> First, a simple example to give the broad strokes:
>> foo() do:
>>     BODY
>>
>> is equivalent to:
>>
>> def ANON():
>>     BODY
>> foo(ANON)
> 
> Add del anon and the equivalence is almost exact.
> Call all one-off functions '_' and there is no need to ever delete the
> name and you have
> 
> def _(): body
> foo(_)
> 
> which is nearly identical to your proposed foo(&).

You can even use decorator notation to move the call before the function
body:

@foo
def thunk():
  BODY

(Note that most code block ideas haven't actually made it to the PEP
stage - the only one along those lines that I can see in PEP 0 is PEP
359's "make" statement, which had more to do with metaclasses than code
blocks. That said, I recall assorted code block based ideas being thrown
around in the PEP 340/342/343/346 discussions that eventually lead to
the introduction of PEP 343's with statement and PEP 342's generator
enhancements)

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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