What is Functional Programming in R?

Functional programming in R is a programming paradigm where functions are treated as first-class citizens, meaning they can be assigned to variables, passed as arguments to other functions, and returned as values. This approach allows for writing cleaner, more modular code that is easier to test and maintain.

# Example of a function that returns another function
create_multiplier <- function(multiplier) {
    function(x) {
        return(x * multiplier)
    }
}

# Creating a function that multiplies by 3
multiply_by_3 <- create_multiplier(3)
result <- multiply_by_3(10)  # Returns 30
print(result)

In this example, the function create_multiplier() generates a new function that multiplies its input by a specified multiplier. This illustrates how functions in R can be dynamically created and manipulated, which is a core concept in functional programming.