Python Projects for Beginners a ten-Week Bootcamp Approach to Python Programming

Passing Multiple Arguments

Lambdas can take in any number of arguments, like functions. Let’s try passing in two arguments this time and multiplying them by each other:

# passing multiple arguments into a lambda
( lambda x, y : x * y )( 10, 5 ) # x = 10, y = 5 and returns the result of 5 * 10

Go ahead and run the cell. We’ll get an output of 50. This time the lambda function accepted two arguments of x and y on the left side of the colon. On the right side of the colon, it was able to perform the expression of multiplying those two arguments together and returning the result. In the following, you’ll find the same code, as if we wrote a normal function:
>>> def multiply(x, y):
>>> return x * y
>>> multiply(10, 5)
Same as before, we were able to save a couple lines of code to get the same result.

Saving Lambda Functions

Lambdas get there name anonymous function because they don’t have a name to reference or call upon. Once a lambda function is used, it can’t be used again unless it is saved into a variable. Let’s use the same lambda function as before, except this time save it into a variable called “square” that can be referenced even after the lambda function is read:

# saving a lambda function into a variable square = lambda x, y : x * y print(square) result = square(10, 5) # calls the lambda function stored in the square variable and returns 5 * 10 print(result)

Go ahead and run the cell. We’ll get the same output as before, except this time we got it by calling square as a function. When functions are stored inside of variables, the variable name acts as the function call. When we stored a lambda inside of the square variable, we were able to call the lambda function by calling square and passing in the arguments.
Note even functions that are defined normally can be saved into variables and referenced by the variable name.