Designing a function of python which can accept variable number of arguments

In this post, we will know how to make a function in python that can accept any number of arguments.

To make a function with variable arguments the syntax is *arg. When a function is written with a parameter having * before it then that function can take any number of arguments in the form of a tuple.

The parameter of a function having * before it will get the arguments in the form of a tuple of all the arguments.

Below is the example which illustrates it:

EXAMPLE-1

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#Created a sum function with an star before its parameter def sum(*arg): sum=0 print(type(arg)) for i in arg: sum+=i return sum a=sum(10,20,30,40) print("a=",a) b=sum(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) print("b=",b)

output: 

<class 'tuple'>

a=100

<class 'tuple'>

b=45

To access parameters with their name we will make parameters with a double star before it. This will create a dictionary of arguments. 

EXAMPLE-2

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def compute(**arg): print(arg) print(type(arg)) if 'base' in arg and 'power' in arg: base=arg['base'] power=arg['power'] return base**power if 'divisor' in arg and 'dividend' in arg: divisor=arg['divisor'] dividend=arg['dividend'] return dividend/divisor a=compute(base=10,power=2) print(a) b=compute(divisor=5,dividend=20) print(b)

Output:

{'base': 10, 'power': 2}

<class 'dict'>

100

{'divisor': 5, 'dividend': 20}

<class 'dict'>

4.0

In the compute function above we have used **arg, this type of parameter will accept the arguments with their variable name and will convert it into a dictionary.