meaning of higher order function
1. higher-order function HOF A function that can take one or more functions as argument and/or return a function as its value. E. g. map in map f l which returns the list of results of applying function f to each of the elements of list l. See also curried function. higher-order macro A means of expressing certain higher-order functions in a first order language. Proposed by Phil Wadler. Higher-order macros cannot be recursive at the top level but they may contain recursive definitions. E. g. map f l = m l where m [] = [] m x:xs = f x : m xs Expanding a call to this macro is equivalent to specialising a call to map in its first argument. See partial evaluation. High-level Data Link Control
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