We can make simple partials using the Python lambda. Here's a Python version of the add function we looked at in Haskell:

Python doesn't support currying as part of the language, so we can't just do:

add(1)

If we try, an exception is raised:

>>> inc = add(1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in
TypeError: function takes 2 positional arguments but 1 were given

What we can do is use a lambda as described in this guide:

>>> inc = lambda x: add(1, x)
>>> inc(2)
3

We can go a bit further with this approach and define a function that does this for us, taking the first argument on which to partially apply add:

Now we can use make_adder to, in essence, partially apply add to an argument:

>>> inc = make_adder(1)
>>> inc(2)
3

Since make_adder is general, we can use it to create any "add a constant" functions. E.g.

>>> add10 = make_adder(10)
>>> add10(5)
15

This approach can be useful, but requires a specialized partial application function for each case. Python provides the capability to come up with a more general solution.