Python functions with multiple parameter brackets

Question

I\'ve been having trouble understanding what h(a)(b) means. I\'d never seen one of those before yesterday, and I couldn\'t declare a function this way:

Answer 1

Functions with multiple parameter brackets don't exist, as you saw when you tried to define one. There are, however, functions which return (other) functions:

def func(a):
    def func2(b):
        return a + b
    return func2

Now when you call func() it returns the inner func2 function:

>>> func2 = func(1)  # You don't have to call it func2 here
>>> func2(2)
3

But if you don't need the inner function later on, then there's no need to save it into a variable and you can just call them one after the other:

>>> func(1)(2)   # func(1) returns func2 which is then called with (2)
3

This is a very common idiom when defining decorators that take arguments.

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Notice that calling func() always creates a new inner function, even though they're all named func2 inside of the definition of our func:

>>> f1 = func(1)
>>> f2 = func(1)
>>> f1(1), f2(1)
(2, 2)
>>> f1 is f2
False

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And, finally, what's the difference between f(a, b)and f(a)(b)?

It should be clear now that you know what f(a)(b) does, but to summarize:

• f(a, b) calls f with two parameters a and b
• f(a)(b) calls f with one parameter a, which then returns another function, which is then called with one parameter b