Python Language Functions Lambda (Inline/Anonymous) Functions

Help us to keep this website almost Ad Free! It takes only 10 seconds of your time:
> Step 1: Go view our video on YouTube: EF Core Bulk Extensions
> Step 2: And Like the video. BONUS: You can also share it!

Example

The lambda keyword creates an inline function that contains a single expression. The value of this expression is what the function returns when invoked.

Consider the function:

def greeting():
    return "Hello"

which, when called as:

print(greeting())

prints:

Hello

This can be written as a lambda function as follows:

greet_me = lambda: "Hello"

See note at the bottom of this section regarding the assignment of lambdas to variables. Generally, don't do it.

This creates an inline function with the name greet_me that returns Hello. Note that you don't write return when creating a function with lambda. The value after : is automatically returned.

Once assigned to a variable, it can be used just like a regular function:

print(greet_me())

prints:

Hello

lambdas can take arguments, too:

strip_and_upper_case = lambda s: s.strip().upper()

strip_and_upper_case("  Hello   ")

returns the string:

HELLO

They can also take arbitrary number of arguments / keyword arguments, like normal functions.

greeting = lambda x, *args, **kwargs: print(x, args, kwargs)
greeting('hello', 'world', world='world')

prints:

hello ('world',) {'world': 'world'}

lambdas are commonly used for short functions that are convenient to define at the point where they are called (typically with sorted, filter and map).

For example, this line sorts a list of strings ignoring their case and ignoring whitespace at the beginning and at the end:

sorted( [" foo ", "    bAR", "BaZ    "], key=lambda s: s.strip().upper())
# Out:
# ['    bAR', 'BaZ    ', ' foo ']

Sort list just ignoring whitespaces:

sorted( [" foo ", "    bAR", "BaZ    "], key=lambda s: s.strip())
# Out:
# ['BaZ    ', '    bAR', ' foo ']

Examples with map:

sorted( map( lambda s: s.strip().upper(), [" foo ", "    bAR", "BaZ    "]))
# Out:
# ['BAR', 'BAZ', 'FOO']

sorted( map( lambda s: s.strip(), [" foo ", "    bAR", "BaZ    "]))
# Out:
# ['BaZ', 'bAR', 'foo']

Examples with numerical lists:

my_list = [3, -4, -2, 5, 1, 7]
sorted( my_list, key=lambda x: abs(x))
# Out:
# [1, -2, 3, -4, 5, 7]

list( filter( lambda x: x>0, my_list))
# Out:
# [3, 5, 1, 7]

list( map( lambda x: abs(x), my_list))
# Out:
[3, 4, 2, 5, 1, 7]

One can call other functions (with/without arguments) from inside a lambda function.

def foo(msg):
    print(msg)

greet = lambda x = "hello world": foo(x)
greet()

prints:

hello world

This is useful because lambda may contain only one expression and by using a subsidiary function one can run multiple statements.


NOTE

Bear in mind that PEP-8 (the official Python style guide) does not recommend assigning lambdas to variables (as we did in the first two examples):

Always use a def statement instead of an assignment statement that binds a lambda expression directly to an identifier.

Yes:

def f(x): return 2*x

No:

f = lambda x: 2*x

The first form means that the name of the resulting function object is specifically f instead of the generic <lambda>. This is more useful for tracebacks and string representations in general. The use of the assignment statement eliminates the sole benefit a lambda expression can offer over an explicit def statement (i.e. that it can be embedded inside a larger expression).



Got any Python Language Question?