Returning a function, which returns the result? [duplicate]

Question

Submission formats are always flexible here on PPCG. Named functions, anonymous functions or even full programs that perform IO, are all fine.

Even currying is acceptable, for example, taking arguments as f(4)(5) rather than f(4, 5).

But what about returning a function that returns the result?

---

Examples

Consider the following Python code to find the length of a string:

f = lambda s: s.__len__

^{I know this is a long way to do it, I'm just trying to give a simple example.}

To call this function, one would have to call f with the string parameter, and then call the result, to get the answer - for example, f("String")().

Another example is this pseudo-Java lambda to convert an object to a string:

x -> x.toString

If you assigned this to f, you'd call it with f(object)(). It's very similar to currying, except that the second call takes no parameter.

---

My question is - should we allow this as an acceptable output format for PPCG code-golf answers?

Answer 1

Yes

This is a relatively reasonable way of returning an answer, the way I see it, it is not substantially different from returning a one element (of which the first element must be accessed through a method call). Essentially you are returning the data, in a clear way, which is accessable. (Feel free to edit in additional reasons).