Editing Currying (section)

==Motivation==
Currying provides a way for working with functions that take multiple arguments, and using them in frameworks where functions might take only one argument. For example, some [[#Definition|analytical techniques]] can only be applied to [[function (mathematics)|function]]s with a single argument. Practical functions frequently take more arguments than this. [[Gottlob Frege|Frege]] showed that it was sufficient to provide solutions for the single argument case, as it was possible to transform a function with multiple arguments into a chain of single-argument functions instead. This transformation is the process now known as currying.<ref>{{cite web |author= |date=November 2002 |editor-last=Hutton |editor-first=Graham |editor2-last=Jones |editor2-first=Mark P. |title=Frequently Asked Questions for comp.lang.functional, 3. Technical topics, 3.2. Currying |url=http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gmh/faq.html#currying |url-status= |archive-url= |archive-date= |work=University of Nottingham Computer Science}}</ref> All "ordinary" functions that might typically be encountered in [[mathematical analysis]] or in [[computer programming]] can be curried.  However, there are categories in which currying is not possible; the most general categories which allow currying are the [[closed monoidal category|closed monoidal categories]].

Some [[programming language]]s almost always use curried functions to achieve multiple arguments; notable examples are [[ML (programming language)|ML]] and [[Haskell]], where in both cases all functions have exactly one argument. This property is inherited from [[lambda calculus]], where multi-argument functions are usually represented in curried form.

Currying is related to, but not the same as [[partial application]].<ref name="lambda-the-ultimate"/><ref name="uncarved"/> In practice, the programming technique of [[Closure (computer programming)|closures]] can be used to perform partial application and a kind of currying, by hiding arguments in an environment that travels with the curried function.