closure

In Scheme, a closure is created when a function, usually a lambda expression, is passed as a variable. The closure contains the function’s code plus references to the lexical bindings of the function’s free variables (i.e., those variables used in the expression but defined outside it). When this function is applied to different arguments later, the free variable bindings that were captured in the closure are used to obtain the values of the free variables to be used in the calculation. One useful property of closures is the retention of internal variable values between invocations, so permitting state to be maintained.


LilyPond — Notation Reference v2.25.4 (development-branch).