I have seen and used nested functions in Python, and they match the definition of a closure. So why are they called “nested functions” instead of “closures”?
Are nested functions not closures because they are not used by the external world?
UPDATE: I was reading about closures and it got me thinking about this concept with respect to Python. I searched and found the article mentioned by someone in a comment below, but I couldn’t completely understand the explanation in that article, so that is why I am asking this question.
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Answer
A closure occurs when a function has access to a local variable from an enclosing scope that has finished its execution.
def make_printer(msg): def printer(): print(msg) return printer printer = make_printer('Foo!') printer()
When make_printer
is called, a new frame is put on the stack with the compiled code for the printer
function as a constant and the value of msg
as a local. It then creates and returns the function. Because the function printer
references the msg
variable, it is kept alive after the make_printer
function has returned.
So, if your nested functions don’t
- access variables that are local to enclosing scopes,
- do so when they are executed outside of that scope,
then they are not closures.
Here’s an example of a nested function which is not a closure.
def make_printer(msg): def printer(msg=msg): print(msg) return printer printer = make_printer("Foo!") printer() #Output: Foo!
Here, we are binding the value to the default value of a parameter. This occurs when the function printer
is created and so no reference to the value of msg
external to printer
needs to be maintained after make_printer
returns. msg
is just a normal local variable of the function printer
in this context.