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According to this answer, a function call is a statement, but in the course I'm following in Coursera they say a function call is an expression.
So this is my guess: a function call does something, that's why it's a statement, but after it's called it evaluates and passes a value, which makes it also an expression.
Is a function call an expression?
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A function call is an expression that includes the name of the function being called or the value of a function pointer and, optionally, the arguments being passed to the function.
A function is a block of code which only runs when it is called. You can pass data, known as parameters, into a function. A function can return data as a result.
In Python, operators are special symbols that designate that some sort of computation should be performed. The values that an operator acts on are called operands. A sequence of operands and operators, like a + b - 5 , is called an expression. Python supports many operators for combining data objects into expressions.
A function call is an expression that passes control and arguments (if any) to a function and has the form: expression (expression-listopt) where expression is a function name or evaluates to a function address and expression-list is a list of expressions (separated by commas).
A call is an expression; it is listed in the Expressions reference documentation.
If it was a statement, you could not use it as part of an expression; statements can contain expressions, but not the other way around.
As an example, return expression is a statement; it uses expressions to determine it's behaviour; the result of the expression is what the current function returns. You can use a call as part of that expression:
return some_function()
You cannot, however, use return as part of a call:
some_function(return)
That would be a syntax error.
It is the return that 'does something'; it ends the function and returns the result of the expression. It's not the expression itself that makes the function return.
If a python call was not an expression, you'd never be able to mix calls and other expression atoms into more complex expressions.
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