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Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Dictionaries Packing and Unpacking Dictionaries

Akshaan Mazumdar
Akshaan Mazumdar
3,787 Points
Posted by Akshaan Mazumdar
Akshaan Mazumdar
3,787 Points

why is 1 being printed in this example ? the length of name = "Kenneth" is 1?

def packing(**kwargs): ... print(len(kwargs)) packing(name="Kenneth") 1

1 Answer

Stuart Wright
Stuart Wright
41,118 Points
Stuart Wright
Stuart Wright
41,118 Points

The length is one because you have passed one keyword argument. If you write:

packing(name="Kenneth", age=10)

The length will be two. The actual length of the individual elements isn't considered. Change the body of the function to:

print(kwargs)

And you'll see a dictionary is printed containing the keyword arguments. It is this dictionary you're currently printing the length of.

Akshaan Mazumdar
Akshaan Mazumdar
3,787 Points
Akshaan Mazumdar
Akshaan Mazumdar
3,787 Points

Thanks. Do u have any extra material to study kwargs and packing/unpacking further??

Stuart Wright
Stuart Wright
41,118 Points
Stuart Wright
Stuart Wright
41,118 Points

The official documentation is a good place to start - it has quite a few examples:

https://docs.python.org/3.6/tutorial/controlflow.html#keyword-arguments