What are *args and **kwargs in Python

Understand the purpose and usage of args and kwargs in Python functions.

The concept of args and kwargs is a common use case found in function arguments in Python.

#more

They allow an arbitrary number of arguments and keyword arguments to functions.

*args¶

Using *args allows to pass an arbitrary number of function arguments.

Inside the function *args will give you all function parameters as a tuple:

def foo(*args):
    for a in args:
        print(a)        

foo(1)
# 1

foo("Patrick", 30, 1)
# Patrick
# 30
# 1

**kwargs¶

Using **kwargs allows to pass an arbitrary number of keyword arguments.

Inside the function **kwargs will give you all function parameters as a dictionary:

def foo(**kwargs):
    for key, value in kwargs.items():
        print(key, value)        

foo(name="Pat", age="30")
# name, Pat
# age, 30

Mixing args and kwargs¶

Both idioms can be mixed with normal arguments to allow a set of fixed and some variable length arguments:

def foo(name, *args, **kwargs):
    print(name)

    for a in args:
        print(a)

    for key, value in kwargs.items():
        print(key, value)      


foo("Patrick", 30, 1, role='Software Engineer', level=3)
# Patrick
# 30
# 1
# role Software Engineer
# level 3

Unpacking¶

Another usage of the *var or `**var idiom is to unpack argument sequences when calling a function.

• Lists/tuples/sets/strings can be unpacked into function arguments with one * if the length matches the parameters.
• Dictionaries can be unpacked with two ** if the length and the keys match the parameters.

def foo(a, b, c):
    print(a, b, c)

# length must match
my_list = [1, 2, 3]
foo(*my_list)

my_string = "ABC"
foo(*my_string)

# length and keys must match
my_dict = {'a': 4, 'b': 5, 'c': 6}
foo(**my_dict)

1 2 3
A B C
4 5 6

A more detailed look at all use cases of the asterisk (*) and double asterisk can be found in this article.