Note that even though the spec doesn't mention any restrictions on the keys of the dictionary, CPython does:
>>> def f(*args, **kw): print args, kw
...
>>> f(**{1: 2})
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: f() keywords must be strings
This is a restriction made by the python interpreter when invoking code objects (user defined functions). The reason why is explained in the source code right after the part that raises the above exception:
/* Speed hack: do raw pointer compares. As names are
normally interned this should almost always hit. */
In Python, you can define a function that takes variable number of arguments. In this article, you will learn to define such functions using default, keyword and arbitrary arguments.,Up until now, functions had a fixed number of arguments. In Python, there are other ways to define a function that can take variable number of arguments.,In the user-defined function topic, we learned about defining a function and calling it. Otherwise, the function call will result in an error. Here is an example.,Sometimes, we do not know in advance the number of arguments that will be passed into a function. Python allows us to handle this kind of situation through function calls with an arbitrary number of arguments.
In the user-defined function topic, we learned about defining a function and calling it. Otherwise, the function call will result in an error. Here is an example.
def greet(name, msg): "" "This function greets to the person with the provided message "" " print("Hello", name + ', ' + msg) greet("Monica", "Good morning!")
Output
Hello Monica, Good morning!
If we call it with a different number of arguments, the interpreter will show an error message. Below is a call to this function with one and no arguments along with their respective error messages.
>>> greet("Monica") # only one argument
TypeError: greet() missing 1 required positional argument: 'msg'
We can provide a default value to an argument by using the assignment operator (=). Here is an example.
def greet(name, msg = "Good morning!"): "" " This function greets to the person with the provided message. If the message is not provided, it defaults to "Good morning!" "" " print("Hello", name + ', ' + msg) greet("Kate") greet("Bruce", "How do you do?")
This means to say, non-default arguments cannot follow default arguments. For example, if we had defined the function header above as:
def greet(msg = "Good morning!", name):
keyword argument: an argument preceded by an identifier (e.g. name=) in a function call or passed as a value in a dictionary preceded by **. For example, 3 and 5 are both keyword arguments in the following calls to complex():,keyword argument: an argument preceded by an identifier (e.g. name=) in a function call or passed as a value in a dictionary preceded by **. For example, 3 and 5 are both keyword arguments in the following calls to complex(): complex(real=3, imag=5) complex(**{'real': 3, 'imag': 5}) ,A named entity in a function (or method) definition that specifies an argument (or in some cases, arguments) that the function can accept. There are five kinds of parameter:,positional-or-keyword: specifies an argument that can be passed either positionally or as a keyword argument. This is the default kind of parameter, for example foo and bar in the following:
complex(real = 3, imag = 5)
complex( ** {
'real': 3,
'imag': 5
})
complex(3, 5) complex( * (3, 5))
def f(arg):
...
f = staticmethod(f)
@staticmethod
def f(arg):
...
def sum_two_numbers(a: int, b: int) - > int:
return a + b
>>>
import __future__
>>>
__future__.division
_Feature((2, 2, 0, 'alpha', 2), (3, 0, 0, 'alpha', 0), 8192)
>>> sum(i * i
for i in range(10)) # sum of squares 0, 1, 4, ...81
285
An anonymous function accepting multiple arguments can be written using the syntax (x,y,z)->2x+y-z. A zero-argument anonymous function is written as ()->3. The idea of a function with no arguments may seem strange, but is useful for "delaying" a computation. In this usage, a block of code is wrapped in a zero-argument function, which is later invoked by calling it as f.,Optional arguments are actually just a convenient syntax for writing multiple method definitions with different numbers of arguments (see Note on Optional and keyword Arguments). This can be checked for our Date function example by calling methods function.,The call to time is delayed by wrapping it in a 0-argument anonymous function that is called only when the requested key is absent from dict.,How these arguments are initialized depends on the "outer" function; here, map will sequentially set x to A, B, C, calling the anonymous function on each, just as would happen in the syntax map(func, [A, B, C]).
In Julia, a function is an object that maps a tuple of argument values to a return value. Julia functions are not pure mathematical functions, because they can alter and be affected by the global state of the program. The basic syntax for defining functions in Julia is:
julia > function f(x, y)
x + y
end
f(generic
function with 1 method)
There is a second, more terse syntax for defining a function in Julia. The traditional function declaration syntax demonstrated above is equivalent to the following compact "assignment form":
julia > f(x, y) = x + y
f(generic
function with 1 method)
A function is called using the traditional parenthesis syntax:
julia > f(2, 3) 5
As with variables, Unicode can also be used for function names:
julia > ∑(x, y) = x + y∑(generic
function with 1 method)
julia > ∑(2, 3)
5
You can declare the types of function arguments by appending ::TypeName
to the argument name, as usual for Type Declarations in Julia. For example, the following function computes Fibonacci numbers recursively:
fib(n::Integer) = n≤ 2 ? one(n) : fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2)