Functools: Python Package Every Developer Should Know.

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Python’s functools library is a treasure trove for developers who thrive on writing clean, efficient, and maintainable code. If you've ever found yourself repeating function calls or wishing for a more elegant solution to function handling, then functools is about to become your best friend.

In this article, we’ll dive deep into the functools library, exploring each of its functions, and understanding when and why to use them, complete with practical examples. Let’s transform our coding practices and harness the full power of Python's functional programming capabilities.

Why Use functools?

functools provides higher-order functions, which are functions that operate on other functions. This can mean returning a function, taking a function as an argument, or both. These tools are perfect for creating decorators, caching results, and transforming how we handle functions and methods.

Here’s a breakdown of each function within the functools module:

1. functools.reduce()

reduce() applies a binary function cumulatively to the items of an iterable, reducing it to a single value.