An Exploratory Study Towards Understanding Lambda Expressions in Python

Abstract

Lambda expressions are anonymous functions in Python. It is one of the alternatives to write a function definition. Syntactically, it is a single expression and defined using the keyword lambda. Lambda expression is a functional programming feature, currently in use, in many mainstream programming languages such as Python, Java8, C++11. There are few studies in C++ and Java to understand the impact of lambda expressions on programmers. These studies are focusing on the developer's adaptability to use a functional style of construct and the benefit they gain from using it. However, we are not aware of any literature on the use of lambda expressions in Python. Thus, there is a need to study lambda expressions in Python projects. In this paper, we examine 15 GitHub repositories out of 760 from our dataset, that are using Python as their primary language. In this study, we are classifying the uses of lambda expressions based on varying scenarios. We identified 13 different usages of lambda expressions from these Python repositories. This catalog is an attempt to support programmers to use lambda expressions more effectively and efficiently.