Simplify body of Function after replacement

Question

I have come across a simple example of bizarre behaviour, i.e.:

Function[t, t*c] /. c -> 0

which outputs

Function[t, t 0]

How can I make the product "t 0" evaluate to 0?

Answer 1

Function has the attribute HoldAll:

Attributes[Function]

{HoldAll, Protected}

This explains the behavior you're seeing. There are many ways to handle this. One that I like is to use Inactivate/Activate:

expr = Function[t, t*c] /. c -> 0;

Activate @ Inactivate[Evaluate @ expr, Function]

Function[t, 0]

With Inactivate, you can control which parts of expr get inactivated, i.e., you can do partial evaluations. As a silly example, suppose you have:

expr = Function[t, 0/0 + 1 + 2]

Function[t, 0/0 + 1 + 2]

You can avoid evaluating 0/0 as follows:

Activate @ Inactivate[Evaluate @ expr, Function | Times | Power]

Function[t, 3 + 0/0]

Answer 2

While Carl Woll's answer is probably better in general, here I would just use the more terse MapAt :

expr = Function[t, t*c] /. c -> 0;

MapAt[ Evaluate, expr, 2 ]

Function[t, 0]

Note that the operator form makes this particularly convenient to use:

Function[t, t*c] /. c -> 0 // MapAt[Evaluate, 2]

Function[t, 0]