function making

Question

Hi I am new to functional programming. What i did is

>>> g=lambda x:x*2
>>> f=g
>>> g=lambda x:f(f(x))
>>> g(9)
36
         


        

Answer 1

In python, variables are names mapped to values, not values themselves (everything is a reference). Also, you can think of lambda as storing text that can be evaluated. The following will illustrate

a = 2
f = lambda x: a*x
f(2) # This gives 4
a = 3
f(2) # This gives 6

This should clear up why you are getting infinite recursion.

In answer to your question about recursing, here is a little hack that might do

g = lambda x, n: n > 0 and g(x, n-1)**2 or x

Then g(2,3) would be (((2)^2)^2)^2 = 256.