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First-Class Citizen (Computer Science)

In programming, an entity is called First-Class Citizen if all of the following apply:

  1. it can be passed as an argument to another function
  2. it can be returned as a value
  3. it can be assigned as a value

JavaScript Example​

In JavaScript, functions are treated as First-Class Citizens:


const f = x => x + 1;

const g = f => f;

// 1. argument: g(f)
// 2. return value: return f
// 3. assignment: h = g(f)
const h = g(f);

h(1); // 2

g() serves as a Higher-Order Function as it takes a function as an argument.

see also