Welcome back! In your previous lessons, you learned about modules
and structs
in Elixir. These concepts helped you write more organized and efficient code. Today, we're diving into another fascinating topic — anonymous functions.
Anonymous functions are fundamental in Elixir
and many other functional programming languages. They allow you to create functions without giving them a name. You'll find them especially useful for short-lived tasks and for passing functions as arguments to other functions.
In this section, we will cover:
- How to define an
anonymous function
. - How to invoke (or call) an
anonymous function
. - How to pass multiple arguments to an
anonymous function
. - Practical uses of
anonymous functions
in your code.
We'll start with some basic examples to get you familiar with the syntax and usage:
Elixir1greet = fn name -> IO.puts "Hello, #{name}!" end 2greet.("Alice") 3 4add = fn (a, b) -> a + b end 5result = add.(5, 3) 6IO.puts result
In these examples:
- We define an
anonymous function
greet
that takes a single parameter,name
, and prints a greeting message. We then call thisanonymous function
by passing the argument"Alice"
. - We define another
anonymous function
add
that takes two parameters,a
andb
, and returns their sum. We then call thisanonymous function
by passing the arguments5
and3
, and print the result.
Anonymous functions are significant for several reasons:
-
Flexibility: You can create and use functions on the fly without worrying about naming them. This is particularly useful for small, quick tasks.
-
Higher-Order Functions:
Elixir
allows you to passanonymous functions
as arguments to other functions. This capability enriches your coding possibilities by enabling higher-order functions and functional programming techniques. We'll explore higher-order functions in the next course of this learning journey. -
Modularity:
Anonymous functions
help you write more modular and concise code. By breaking down complex operations into smaller anonymous functions, you can make your code easier to read and maintain.
Are you excited to harness the power of anonymous functions
in Elixir
? Let’s move on to the practice section where you'll get hands-on experience with these flexible and powerful tools!