Question

I’m not able to understand the following code segment:

>>> lot = ((1, 2), (3, 4), (5,))
>>> reduce(lambda t1, t2: t1 + t2, lot)
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

How does the reduce function produce a tuple of (1,2,3,4,5) ?

Answer 1

It’s easier if you break out the lambda into a function, so it’s clearer to what’s going on:

>>> def do_and_print(t1, t2):
    print 't1 is', t1
    print 't2 is', t2
    return t1+t2

>>> reduce(do_and_print, ((1,2), (3,4), (5,)))
t1 is (1, 2)
t2 is (3, 4)
t1 is (1, 2, 3, 4)
t2 is (5,)
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)