Question

From the docs:

int (^Multiply)(int, int) = ^(int num1, int num2) {
    return num1 * num2;
};
int result = Multiply(7, 4); // result is 28

It only looks complicated – the same thing could be done with an function, or not? What’s the real point here in this example?

Answer 1

Blocks’ power is as lexical closures (also known as lambdas in languages such as Python or C#). Thus, you can do

// within other code

int myVar;

int (^multiplyClosure)(int) = ^(int num1) {
    return num1 * myVar;
};

You can then pass this block around and it will keep a (copy) of myVar. Thus a closure is really code and context and therein lies the power.