variable argument vs list in python as function arguments

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A final option: Support both approaches! You can specify that your function accepts one or more arguments. If it gets only one, it expects an iterable containing URLs. If it gets more than one argument, it expects each to be a separate URL. Here's what that might look like:

def process_urls( * args):
   if len(args) == 1:
   args = args[0]

# do stuff with args, which is an iterable of URLs

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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.,Python allows functions to be called using keyword arguments. When we call functions in this way, the order (position) of the arguments can be changed. Following calls to the above function are all valid and produce the same result.,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.

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):

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Last Updated : 16 Aug, 2022

Output:

Hello
Welcome
to
GeeksforGeeks

red
250

red
250

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For example, range() function in Python stores three different arguments - start, stop, and step. If the user does not want to input the values separately, he can write the function call with the * operator to unpack the arguments out of a list or tuple.,In this article, we used different examples to understand how can we unpack the list elements to use them as multiple arguments. We discussed *args syntax in Python to unpack the arguments of the list and use them separately in the function body.,In this article, we will learn how to pass a list to a function to act as multiple arguments in Python. We will understand the basic approach with some custom codes. Let's first have a quick look over what is a list in Python.,In this example, my_list is iterable that is passed as an argument. Function definition treats this list as multiple arguments. Python program loops over the given list and uses each element of the list as a separate argument to the function. The below code just unpacks the list using the *args syntax when defining the function.

Python has a built-in data type called list. It is like a collection of arrays with different methodology. Data inside the list can be of any type say, integer, string or a float value, or even a list type. The list uses comma-separated values within square brackets to store data. Lists can be defined using any variable name and then assigning different values to the list in a square bracket. The list is ordered, changeable, and allows duplicate values.

list1 = ["Ram", "Arun", "Kiran"]
list2 = [16, 78, 32, 67]
list3 = ["apple", "mango", 16, "cherry", 3.4]

In this example, my_list is iterable that is passed as an argument. Function definition treats this list as multiple arguments. Python program loops over the given list and uses each element of the list as a separate argument to the function. The below code just unpacks the list using the *args syntax when defining the function.

#function definition
def add( * params):
   sum = 0
for num in params:
   sum += num
print(sum)

#input list
my_list = [1, 2, 3]
#function call
add( * my_list)

def calculateTotalSum( * arguments):
   totalSum = 0
for number in arguments:
   totalSum += number
print(totalSum)

#
function call
calculateTotalSum(5, 4, 3, 2, 1)