Currying in Matlab

Question

As MATLAB has a hard maximum of 10 input arguments it's possible, but ugly, to implement a curry function in this manner:

%% turns a standard function into a curried one
%  if g has 3 input arguments then you can call:
%  h = curry(g)
%  h(1)(2)(3) == g(1, 2, 3)
%  Matlab doesn't like h(1)(2)(3), but in principle it works.
function fOut = curry(fIn)
  fOut = fIn;

  % can't curry a vararg function
  if (nargin(fOut) < 0)
    return
  end

  if (nargin(fOut) == 10)
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1, free2, free3, free4, free5, free6, free7, free8, free9) (fIn(bind, free1, free2, free3, free4, free5, free6, free7, free8, free9))));
    return
  end

  if (nargin(fOut) == 9)
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1, free2, free3, free4, free5, free6, free7, free8) (fIn(bind, free1, free2, free3, free4, free5, free6, free7, free8))));
    return
  end

  if (nargin(fOut) == 8)
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1, free2, free3, free4, free5, free6, free7) (fIn(bind, free1, free2, free3, free4, free5, free6, free7))));
    return
  end

  if (nargin(fOut) == 7)
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1, free2, free3, free4, free5, free6) (fIn(bind, free1, free2, free3, free4, free5, free6))));
    return
  end

  if (nargin(fOut) == 6)
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1, free2, free3, free4, free5) (fIn(bind, free1, free2, free3, free4, free5))));
    return
  end

  if (nargin(fOut) == 5)
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1, free2, free3, free4) (fIn(bind, free1, free2, free3, free4))));
    return
  end

  if (nargin(fOut) == 4)
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1, free2, free3) (fIn(bind, free1, free2, free3))));
    return
  end

  if (nargin(fOut) == 3)
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1, free2) (fIn(bind, free1, free2))));
    return
  end

  if (nargin(fOut) == 2)
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1) (fIn(bind, free1))));
    return
  end

end

Is there a less horrible way to do this?

Initially, I tried using varargin which is how I assume the answer will look. Here's what I had at that time:

function fOut = curry(fIn)
  fOut = fIn;

  % can't curry a vararg function (nargin = -1) or a function with less than
  % arity of 2
  if (nargin(fOut) < 2)
    return
  end

  fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(varargin)(fIn(bind, varargin{:}))));

end

Answer 1

The first thing I'd do would be to use a switch statement instead of the if statements. It cleans it up a bunch.

function fOut = curry(fIn)
fOut = fIn;
switch nargin(fOut)
  case 5
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1, free2, free3, free4) (fIn(bind, free1, free2, free3, free4))));
  case 4
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1, free2, free3) (fIn(bind, free1, free2, free3))));
  case 3
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1, free2) (fIn(bind, free1, free2))));
  case 2
    fOut = @(bind)(curry(@(free1) (fIn(bind, free1))));
  otherwise
    % Do nothing, 
end    
return

Also, more than 10 inputs are ok in Matlab:

f = @(a1,a2,a3,a4,a5,a6,a7,a8,a9,a10,a11,a12)cat(2,a1,a2,a3,a4,a5,a6,a7,a8,a9,a10,a11,a12);

Worked in R2008b and in R2012b:

f(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,1,2) 
ans = 
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   0   1   2

Of note, there is a curry function in the functional library on MatlabCentral. (I would have commented this, but I don't have the rep, yet...)