What is Currying in JavaScript

Currying is a technique that transforms a function with multiple parameters into a sequence of functions, each with a single parameter.

In other words, instead of passing all arguments to the function at once, currying allows you to “break down” the function into simpler steps.

Currying is a concept that comes from the mathematical field and has found an important place in functional programming. In JavaScript, it has become a very popular pattern.

Currying in JavaScript

To illustrate currying, let’s consider a simple example. Imagine we have a simple function that adds two numbers:

function add(a, b) {
    return a + b;
}

Nothing particularly exciting, right? Let’s see the curried version of this function.

function curriedAdd(a) {
    return function(b) {
        return a + b;
    };
}

Now, instead of calling our function add(a, b), we have a function that accepts one parameter and returns another function that accepts another parameter.

We can use our curriedAdd version as follows:

const add5 = curriedAdd(5);

console.log(add5(3));  // Output: 8
console.log(add5(10)); // Output: 15

Currying with Lambdas

We can use lambda functions to create a more compact version of currying. The behavior remains the same, but the use of lambdas makes it more concise and more in line with modern JavaScript style.

const add = a => b => a + b;

const result = add(2)(3); // Result: 5

Currying Implementation

We have seen how to manually convert a function into a “curried” version, as in the previous example with the add function.

However, it’s more common to create some generic solution to convert any function. Let’s look at some of them.

function currying(fn) {
    return function(arg1) {
        return function(arg2) {
            return fn(arg1, arg2);
        };
    };
}

// Usage
function multiply(a, b) {
    return a * b;
}

const curriedMultiply = currying(multiply);
const multiplyBy2 = curriedMultiply(2);
console.log(multiplyBy2(4)); // Output: 8

function currying(fn) {
    return function curried(...args) {
        if (args.length >= fn.length) {
            return fn(...args);
        } else {
            return function(...args2) {
                return curried(...args, ...args2);
            };
        }
    };
}

// Usage
function multiply(a, b, c) {
    return a * b * c;
}

const curriedMultiply = currying(multiply);
const multiplyBy2and3 = curriedMultiply(2)(3);
console.log(multiplyBy2and3(4)); // Output: 24

const _ = require('lodash');

const curriedSum = _.curry(function(a, b, c) {
    return a + b + c;
});

console.log(curriedSum(1)(2)(3)); // 6

Function Composition

Currying and function composition are closely related. While currying decomposes functions into a series of unary functions, function composition allows combining them to build new, more complex functions.

const add = a => b => a + b;
const multiply = a => b => a * b;

// We combine the functions to create a new one
const multipliedSum = (a, b, c) => multiply(a)(add(b)(c));

console.log(multipliedSum(2, 3, 4)); // Output: 14

That is, we have composed two curried functions (add and multiply) to form a new, more complex function (multipliedSum).

Practical Examples

function discount(percentage) {
  return function(price) {
    return price * (1 - percentage);
  };
}

const applyDiscount10 = discount(0.1);
const applyDiscount20 = discount(0.2);

console.log(applyDiscount10(100)); // Result: 90
console.log(applyDiscount20(100)); // Result: 80

function configureGreeting(greeting) {
    return function(name) {
        return `${greeting}, ${name}!`;
    };
}

const formalGreeting = configureGreeting('Good morning');
console.log(formalGreeting('John')); // Good morning, John!

function add(a, b) {
    return a + b;
}

function multiply(a, b) {
    return a * b;
}

const curriedSum = currying(add);
const curriedMultiply = currying(multiply);

const result = curriedMultiply(curriedSum(2)(3))(4);
console.log(result); // 20