On 7 December 2017 at 18:28, Ethan Furman <et...@stoneleaf.us> wrote:
> The simple answer is No, and all the answers agree on that point.
>
> It does beg the question of what an identity function is, though.
>
> My contention is that an identity function is a do-nothing function that
> simply returns what it was given:
>
> --> identity(1)
> 1
>
> --> identity('spam')
> 'spam'
>
> --> identity('spam', 'eggs', 7)
> ('spam', 'eggs', 7)
>
> Of the five answers to that SO question, mine is the only one that will
> correctly handle those three examples. If you agree with my contention feel
> free to up-vote my answer. :)
IMO (as a mathematician ;-)) the identity function is a
*single-argument* function that returns the value passed to it. So:
def identity(x):
return x
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_function
identity(1,2) is an error.
Extending the definition to multiple arguments causes all sorts of
confusion, as you've seen.
Paul
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