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[–] 1 point 9 months ago* (2 children)

I don't use any but I'm sure there are functional languages where () is a valid function.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    In Haskell, that's "unit" or the empty tuple. It's basically an object with no contents, behavior, or particular meaning, useful for representing "nothing". It's a solid thing that is never a surprise, unlike undefined or other languages' nulls, which are holes in the language or errors waiting to happen.

    You might argue that it's a value and not a function, but Haskell doesn't really differentiate the two anyway:

    value :: String
    value = "I'm always this string!"
    
    funkyFunc :: String -> String
    funkyFunc name = "Rock on, "++name++", rock on!"
    

    Is value a value, or is it a function that takes no arguments? There's not really a difference, Haskell handles them both the same way: by lazily replacing anything matching the pattern on the left side of the equation with the right side of the equation at runtime.

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