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Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Tuples Packing

Posted by Aryan Monga
Aryan Monga
4,061 Points

A quiz question!

What is this args and kwargs? I'm pretty confused. And please help me to solve this. Any help appreciated. Thanks!

twoples.py 
def multiply(*args, **kwargs):
    total =  1
    for num in kwargs:
        total = total * kwargs
    return total

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points

The names "args" and "kwargs" are just commonly-used conventions for representing packed argument (or keyword-argument) lists. As seen here, they are often used with the packing/unpacking (AKA "splat") operators ("*" and "**").

This was discussed in the video on Tuple-swapping.