No Multiline Lambda in Python: Why not?

Look at the following: Is this a lambda returning (y, [1,2,3]) (thus map only gets one parameter, resulting in an error)? Or does it return y? Or is it a syntax error, because the comma on the new line is misplaced? How would Python know what you want? Within the parens, indentation doesn’t matter to python, so you … Read more

What is key=lambda

A lambda is an anonymous function: It is often used in functions such as sorted() that take a callable as a parameter (often the key keyword parameter). You could provide an existing function instead of a lambda there too, as long as it is a callable object. Take the sorted() function as an example. It’ll return the given iterable in sorted order: but that sorts uppercased … Read more

Reason for the exception java.lang.VerifyError: Bad type on operand stack

The problem arises because your lambda expression does not reference this or a member of this but a member of the outer this. Had you written class B like the compiler rejected it without any doubts as accessing innerData implies accessing this. The point about the outer instance is that it is a constant which is even available when the inner instance has not been fully … Read more

What is key=lambda

A lambda is an anonymous function: It is often used in functions such as sorted() that take a callable as a parameter (often the key keyword parameter). You could provide an existing function instead of a lambda there too, as long as it is a callable object. Take the sorted() function as an example. It’ll return the given iterable in sorted order: but that sorts uppercased … Read more