Reduce and Decorators

The reduce() function from the functools module applies a function of two arguments cumulatively to the items of a sequence, from left to right, so as to reduce the sequence to a single value. For example, reduce(lambda x, y: x+y, [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) calculates ((((1+2)+3)+4)+5). Reduce is useful for operations like summing, multiplying, finding maximum/minimum, or any operation that combines elements sequentially. Decorators are a powerful Python feature that allows modifying or extending the behavior of functions or methods without permanently modifying them. A decorator is a function that takes another function and returns a modified function. The @decorator syntax is syntactic sugar for func = decorator(func). Decorators are commonly used for logging, authentication, timing, caching, and many other cross-cutting concerns. Understanding reduce and decorators allows you to write more functional code and create reusable function modifiers that can cleanly separate concerns in your applications.