Question

I am aware of the partial function in functools, but how common is it in general python programs (not: Haskell, Erlang, Clojure etc ) to write functions to return functions in Python?

for example:

>>> def returnfunk(xs):
...     return lambda x: list(filter(lambda y: x == y, xs))
... 
>>> fn = returnfunk(["cat", "dog", "horse"])
>>> 
>>> (fn("cow") == []) == True
True
>>> (fn("cat") == ['cat']) == True
True
>>> 
>>> list(filter(fn, ["zebra", "elephant", "dog", "parrot", "cat"]))
['dog', 'cat']

is it meant for the real (python) world or more for hobby, academic, interest?

Answer 1

The decorators @classmethod and @staticmethod are two examples.