Higher Order Functions (HOFs) and Currying In Scala

Higher Order Functions This takes functions as input parameters and return another function as an output aka HOFs
Note: map, flatMap, filter belongs to HOFs as they take function as an arg
Example

val superFunction: (Int, (String, (Int => Boolean)) => Int) => (Int => Int) = null
// Input: (String, (Int => Boolean)) => Int) // function within a function
// Output: (Int => Int) // another function which takes Int and returns Int

Currying Functions
Function that applies a given function ‘n’ times over a given value ‘x’

  // nTimes(F, n, x)
      // nTimes(f, 3, x) = f(f(f(x))) = nTimes(f, 2, f(x))

      def nTimes(f: (Int => Int), n: Int, x: Int): Int = {
          if (n == 0) x
          else nTimes(f, n-1, f(x))
      }

      val adder: Int => Int = _ + 1
      val result = nTimes(adder, 10, 0)
      println(result)

      // better way of writing it is to return a function that can compute the value
      // ntb(f, n) = x => f(f(f(....(x))))
      def nTimesBetter(f: Int => Int, n: Int): Int => Int = {
          if (n == 0) (x: Int) => x
          else (x: Int) => nTimesBetter(f, n-1)(f(x))
      }
      val plus10 = nTimesBetter(adder, 10)
      println(plus10(0))

Examples on how to consume and return curried functions

    def toCurry(f: (Int, Int) => Int): (Int => Int => Int) =
        x => y => f(x, y)   // lambda taking value 'x', returns a lambda taking value 'y' and the result is f(x, y)
    // It receives a function of type (Int, Int) => Int
    // It returns a curried function
    // Note: Looks simple to read but its very hard to think about

    def fromCurry(f: Int => Int => Int): (Int, Int) => Int =
        (x, y) => f(x)(y)

    // TEST
    // def superAdder2: (Int => Int => Int) = toCurry(_ + _) is same as below one
    def superAdder2: (Int => Int => Int) = toCurry((x, y) => x + y)
    def add4 = superAdder2(20)
    println(add4(7))

Scala supports another kind of curried function by specifying functions with MULTIPLE PARAMETER LISTS
Curried Formats are like PARTIAL FUNCTIONS in JS
Note: For functions with multiple parameters, if we want to define smaller functions later (Line:43) we have to define type on RHS, otherwise it will not compile.

def curriedFormatter(stringFormat: String)(value: Double): String = stringFormat.format(value)
val standardFormat: (Double => String) = curriedFormatter("%4.2f")
val preciseFormat: (Double => String) = curriedFormatter("%10.8f")
println(standardFormat(Math.PI))
println(preciseFormat(Math.PI))

Function Library (Function1 till Function22) has two very important functions that are very useful.

• compose
• fromThen

    // genericize the above two functions
    def compose[A, B, T](f: A => B, g: T => A): T => B = x => f(g(x))
    def fromThen[A, B, C](f: A => B, g: B => C): A => C = x => g(f(x))

    val add2 = (x: Int) => x + 2
    val times3 = (x: Int) => x * 3
    val composed = compose(add2, times3)
    println(composed(4)) // T=4, A=12, B=14 result is 14
    val ordered = fromThen(add2, times3)
    println(ordered(4)) // A=4, B=6, C=18 result is 18