Book Image

Functional Python Programming, 3rd edition - Third Edition

By : Steven F. Lott
Book Image

Functional Python Programming, 3rd edition - Third Edition

By: Steven F. Lott

Overview of this book

Not enough developers understand the benefits of functional programming, or even what it is. Author Steven Lott demystifies the approach, teaching you how to improve the way you code in Python and make gains in memory use and performance. If you’re a leetcoder preparing for coding interviews, this book is for you. Starting from the fundamentals, this book shows you how to apply functional thinking and techniques in a range of scenarios, with Python 3.10+ examples focused on mathematical and statistical algorithms, data cleaning, and exploratory data analysis. You'll learn how to use generator expressions, list comprehensions, and decorators to your advantage. You don't have to abandon object-oriented design completely, though – you'll also see how Python's native object orientation is used in conjunction with functional programming techniques. By the end of this book, you'll be well-versed in the essential functional programming features of Python and understand why and when functional thinking helps. You'll also have all the tools you need to pursue any additional functional topics that are not part of the Python language.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Preface
16
Other Books You Might Enjoy
17
Index

4.3 Using any() and all() as reductions

The any() and all() functions provide boolean reduction capabilities. Both functions reduce a collection of values to a single True or False. The all() function ensures that all items have a true value; the any() function ensures that at least one item has a true value. In both cases, these functions rely on the Pythonic concept of ”truish”, or truthy: values for which the built-in bool() function returns true. Generally, ”falsish” values include False and None, as well as zero, an empty string, and empty collections. Non-false values are true.

These functions are closely related to a universal quantifier and an existential quantifier used to express mathematical logic. We may, for example, want to assert that all elements in a given collection have a property. One formalism for this could look like the following:

(∀x∈S)Prime (x )

We read this as for all x in S, the function, Prime(x), is true. We’ve used the universal quantifier...