Scala for Backend Engineering & Functional Programming · Lesson

Higher-Order Functions & Currying

Explore advanced functional concepts like higher-order functions and currying to create flexible and reusable code.

Unlocking Higher-Order Functions

Welcome to Lesson 2! In functional programming, functions are powerful. They aren't just for calculating values; they can also be treated like any other data.

This means functions can be passed as arguments to other functions, or even returned as results from them. When a function does this, it's called a Higher-Order Function (HOF).

HOFs take one or more functions as arguments.
HOFs return a function as a result.
Or both!

HOF in Action: `map`

One of the most common HOFs in Scala is map. It transforms each element of a collection by applying a given function to it, returning a new collection.

Try running this simple example:

object Main {
  def main(args: Array[String]): Unit = {
    val numbers = List(1, 2, 3)
    val doubledNumbers = numbers.map(x => x * 2)
    println(s"Original: $numbers")
    println(s"Doubled: $doubledNumbers")
  }
}

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