lambda

Takes the input step (or array of steps, or nothing) as the first argument, a callback as the second argument, and returns a step that represents the result of feeding each value (or array of values, or nothing) through the given callback.

The callback should perform a calculation, or may fetch data, but must not have side effects. If you need to do something with side effects use sideEffect() instead (which has a very similar API).

If you are 100% certain that your callback function:

1. does not do any asynchronous work (no promises),
2. does not have any side effects,
3. will not throw an error

then for the very best performance, you can pass the third argument, isSyncAndSafe, as the value true. Do not do this unless you are certain!

Single dependency version

function lambda<T, R>(
  $input: ExecutableStep<T>,
  callback: (input: T) => R | Promise<R>,
  isSyncAndSafe = false,
): ExecutableStep<R>;

Example

// Takes a step representing a zero-based index, and converts it to a one-based
// index by adding one to it.
const $oneBased = lambda($zeroBased, (zeroBased) => zeroBased + 1, true);

Dependency-free version

If your callback doesn't need any input then you can pass null or undefined instead of a step.

function lambda<R>(
  $input: null | undefined,
  callback: () => R | Promise<R>,
  isSyncAndSafe = false,
): ExecutableStep<R>;

Multiple dependencies version

If you need to pass multiple steps, you can use the list() step to do so: lambda(list([$a, $b, $c]), ([a, b, c]) => a + b + c).

If you'd prefer to save a few characters you can pass the array of steps directly and we'll automatically wrap it in list() for you:

function lambda<Tuple extends [...any[]], R>(
  // i.e. $input: ExecutableStep[],
  $input: { [Index in keyof Tuple]: ExecutableStep<Tuple[Index]> },
  callback: (input: Tuple) => R | Promise<R>,
  isSyncAndSafe = false,
): ExecutableStep<R>;

Example

// Passing an array of steps gives you the values as an array:
const $aPlusB = lambda([$a, $b], ([a, b]) => a + b, true);

Warning: no batching!

lambda is an escape hatch that breaks you out of Grafast's batching; you should only use it for the most trivial of operations (i.e. synchronous JS code that doesn't perform heavy computation and wouldn't benefit from batching).

In most cases, you should use loadOne instead. Here's what the examples above might look like with loadOne - note that these callbacks are now called with all the values at once, rather than one at a time:

const $oneBasedIndex = loadOne($zeroBasedIndex, (allN) =>
  allN.map((n) => n + 1),
);

const $aPlusB = loadOne([$a, $b], (allAsAndBs) =>
  allAsAndBs.map(([a, b]) => a + b),
);