Function Arguments in Python

There are various types of arguments in Python functions. You can read about functions in my post, Functions in Python-

Functions in Python

Multiple Arguments

You can give multiple arguments to a function, by separating them using commas.

For example-

def fruits(a, b):
  print("My favourite fruits are", a, "and", b)

fruits("Banana", "Mango")

The output-

My favourite fruits are Banana and Mango

Here, you need to specify the same number of values as the number of arguments, else you will get an error.

For example-

def fruits(a, b):
  print("My favourite fruits are", a, "and", b)

fruits("Banana")

The output-

TypeError: fruits() missing 1 required positional argument: 'b'

Arbitrary Arguments

If you don’t know how many arguments you will need, you can add a * before the name of the argument while defining the function.

Doing this will submit the values as a tuple to the function. Then, you can use numbering to extract the required value.

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You can read about tuples here-

Python Tuples

For example-

def fruits(*names):
  print("My favourite fruit is", names[1])

fruits("Banana", "Apple", "Mango")

The output-

My favourite fruit is Apple

Here, the second value of fruits() is taken as the value for names, because in Python, numbering begins from 0. So, the first value is number 0, the second is number 1, and so on.

Keyword Arguments

Arguments can be given in another way, where the value of the argument is defined along with it using =.

For example-

def fruits(fruit1, fruit2, fruit3):
  print("My favourite fruit is", fruit3)

fruits(fruit3="Banana", fruit2="Watermelon", fruit1="Grapes")

The output-

My favourite fruit is Banana

Arbitrary Keyword Arguments

These are basically a mix of arbitrary arguments and keyword arguments covered above and can be used when you don’t know the number of arguments you may need.

You can create these by adding ** before the name of the argument.

For example-

def fruits(**names):
  print("My favourite fruit is", names["f2"])

fruits(f1="Banana", f2="Apple", f3="Mango")

The output-

My favourite fruit is Apple

These are the basics that you need to know about arguments in Python.

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Happy coding,

Aarav Iyer