Closure
Description: | An anonymous function, often called a lambda function, which accepts parameters and closes over (i.e., uses) variables from outside its scope |
Annotation: | closure |
Literal Syntax: | {|args| expressions } where |args| is optional. |
Casts: | N/A |
See also: | Types of Data - Closures |
Closures are used in Nu extensively as parameters to iteration style commands like each
, filter
, and reduce
, to name but a few. A closure acts like a custom command that can be invoked either explicitly or by other commands. Closures can take parameters, return values and be passed to commands, either builtin or custom.
Language Notes:
A closure can be directly invoked using the
do
command.> do {|a,b| $a + $b } 34 8 42
The
|args|
list can also contain 0 arguments (||
) or more than one argument|arg1,arg2|
When there are 0 arguments, the
||
is optional as long as the closure cannot be mistaken for a record (which also uses the curly-brace style).- An empty (no-op) closure can be represented as
{||}
- An empty (no-op) closure can be represented as
As in other languages with closures, an important feature is their ability to "close over" variables from the parent scope and use their values even after the parent's scope has ended.
In the following example:
create_greeter
is a custom command that returns a closure- It accepts a
$greeting
argument - When the
create_greeter
command's block ends, the$greeting
variable is out of scope - However, the closure that is returned has "captured" the value represented by
$greeting
and can still access it later when the closure itself is called.
> def create_greeter [ greeting: string ]: nothing -> closure { {|name| $"($greeting), ($name)" } } > let greet = create_greeter "Hello" # Invoke the closure with `do` > do $greet Dalija Hello, Dalija > do $greet Ryan Hello, Ryan # Redefine greet with a new greeting > let greet = create_greeter "Aloha" > do $greet Kai Aloha, Kai
Note that the
create_greeter
only needs to be defined once.There are some restrictions on the kind of external values that can be closed over. Only immutable variables like those created with the
let
keyword or parameters to a custom command can be captured in a closure. Mutable variables created with themut
keyword cannot be captured in a closure. However, you can mutate an$env
variable if used by the--env
flag passed to thedo
keyword.If we try to create a closure that attempts to capture a mutable variable we get a compile error:
if true { mut x = 9 do {|p| $p + $x } } # => Error: Capture of mutable variable.
You cannot pass a closure to an external command; they are reserved only for Nu usage.
As with other types, you can also assign a closure to a variable, and closures can be included as values in a list or record.
You can also use pipeline input as
$in
in most closures instead of providing an explicit parameter. For example:1..10 | each { print $in }
You can also pass closures themselves into a pipeline assuming the next command knows how to consume it. For example, the
do
example can be rewritten as:> {|a,b| $a + $b} | do $in 34 8 43
As seen above, closures can be returned from a custom command. They can also be returned from another closure.
As closures are closely related to functions or commands, their parameters can be typed.
Common commands that can be used with a closure
all
any
collect
do
each
explain
filter
group-by
interleave
items
par-each
reduce
skip until
skip while
take until
tee
update
upsert
zip