What is the purpose of the reduce() function in Python?

The reduce() function in Python is used to apply a binary function to the elements of a sequence (list, tuple, etc.) and reduce the sequence to a single value. The binary function takes two arguments, the result of the previous function call and the current element, and returns the result of the current function call. The result of the final function call is the reduced value.

reduce() is part of the functools module in Python, so it needs to be imported before it can be used.

Syntax: reduce(function, iterable, initializer=None)

where,

• function is the binary function to be applied to the elements of the iterable.
• iterable is the sequence to be reduced (list, tuple, etc.).
• initializer is an optional argument that specifies the initial value for the reduce operation. If not specified, the first element of the iterable is used as the initial value.