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Introduction to Python **kwargs
When we create a function in python, we specify the number of arguments that the function can take. If we provide fewer or more arguments than the specified one, the python interpreter will give an error. However, in python we can pass a number of arguments to a function using special symbols.
The two special symbols are *args and **kwargs.
In this section, we will learn about python kwargs and see how we can pass a number of arguments to a function without getting any error using the python kwargs method. Moreover, we will take different examples and various scenarios to use python kwargs. All in all, this tutorial covers all the concepts that you need to know in order to get started working with python kwargs.
Getting started with Python **kwargs
A python kwargs is a dictionary of keyword arguments. we put two ** before kwargs which allows us to pass any number of keyword arguments. A keyword argument is basically a dictionary.
An example of of a keyword arguments can be:
school(name=UCA, classes=30)
In this section, we will cover the syntax and take some examples of python **kwargs.
Syntax of Python kwargs
The special syntax of python kwargs in function definitions is used to pass a keyworded, variable-length argument list. We use the name kwargs with the double star. The reason is that the double star allows us to pass through keyword arguments (and any number of them).
The simple syntax of python kwargs look like this:
def function_name(**kwargs):
<function statements>
The python kwargs takes keywords argument, which is where we provide a name to the variable as we pass it into the function. We can take it as being a dictionary that maps each keyword to the value that we pass alongside it. That is why when we iterate over **kwargs there doesn’t seem to be any order in which they were printed out.
The type of python kwargs is python dictionary.
# Python kwargs function
def main(**kwargs):
# print type of kwargs
print("The type of Python kwargs: ")
print(type(kwargs))Output:
The type of Python kwargs:
<class 'dict'>
See that the type of argument is a dictionary. If we will provide any other data typed argument, Python will return an error. See the example below:
# Python kwargs function
def main(**kwargs):
# print type of kwargs
print("The type of Python kwargs: ")
print(type(kwargs))
# calling function
main(1, 2, 4,5)Output:
main(1, 2, 4,5)
TypeError: main() takes 0 positional arguments but 4 were given
Now let us provide key-value pairs as an argument and see if we get an error or not! See the example below:
# Python kwargs function
def main(**kwargs):
# printing python kwargs
print("The elements of Python kwargs: ")
print((kwargs))
# calling function
main(a=1, b=2, c=4,d=5)Output:
The elements of Python kwargs:
{'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 4, 'd': 5}
Examples using Python kwargs
Now let us see how we can use **kwargs to take multiple arguments and print out all the sum of all the arguments, but first, let see a python function that takes multiple arguments and return the sum of arguments. See the example below:
# python function with multiple arguments
def main(num1, num2, num3):
print("The sum of arguments is")
# printing the sum
print(num1 + num2 + num3)
# calling function
main(2, 3, 4)Output:
The sum of arguments is
9
Now let us say we have more arguments than the specified one in the main function. Let us pass 5 arguments and See what happens. See the example below:
# python function with multiple arguments
def main(num1, num2, num3):
print("the sum of arguments is:")
# printing the sum
print(num1 + num2 + num3)
# calling function
main(2, 3, 4, 5, 6)Output:
main(2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
TypeError: main() takes 3 positional arguments but 5 were given
Notice that we get an error because we passed more arguments.
Now here comes python **kwargs to solve such problems. With **kwargs we don't need to specify the number of arguments, but we can pass as many as we want while calling the function.
See the example below:
# python function with multiple arguments
def main(**kwargs):
# variables
sum = 0
print("the sum of arguments is:")
# iterating over dictionary of arguments
for keys, value in kwargs.items():
sum+=value
# returns sum of arguments
return sum
# calling function
print(main(one=2, two=3,three= 4,four= 5, five=6))Output:
the sum of arguments is:
20
Notice that we had just passed **kwargs in our function, which means now our function can any number of of keywords arguments.
Using the python kwargs method we can also print the keys of the arguments as well. See the example which prints key-values of argument.
# main function
def main(**kwargs):
print("the key-values are:")
# iterating over dictionary of arguments
for key, value in kwargs.items():
# printing key and ValuesView
print(key, value)
# calling function
main(one=2, two=3,three= 4,four= 5, five=6)Output:
the key-values are:
one 2
two 3
three 4
four 5
five 6
One of the good thing about python **kwargs is that they allow us to pass any data type as an argument. See the example below which provides strings values.
# main function
def main(**kwargs):
print("the key-values are:")
# iterating over dictionary of arguments
for key, value in kwargs.items():
# printing key and ValuesView
print(key, value)
# calling function
main(one="One", two="Two",three= "three",four= "Four", five="Five")Output:
the key-values are:
one One
two Two
three three
four Four
five Five
We can also add the keys separately and values separately. See the following example.
# Python kwargs function
def main(**kwargs):
# variables
keys = ""
values = ""
# iterating over dictionary of arguments
for key, value in kwargs.items():
# adding keys and values to the variables
keys+=key
values+=value
# printing
print("Added keys: {}".format(keys))
print("Added values: {}".format(values))
# calling function
main(a="This ", b="is ", c="Python ", d="tutorial")Output:
Added keys: abcd Added values: This is Python tutorial
Understanding Python args
Unlike **kwargs, Python args is represented by a single asterisk like this; *args. Python args can be used a parameter to send a non-keyworded variables arguments in form of tuple to the function.
See the simple syntax of python args.
def main(*args):
<function statements>
Examples using Python args
Now let us see the python *args type by printing out the type using the python type function. See the example below:
# Using args in python function
def main(*args):
# printing python args type
print(type(args))
# calling function
main()Output:
<class 'tuple'>
Notice that the type of python args is a tuple. Now let us provide a element of tuple as arguments in the following example:
# Using args in python function
def main(*args):
# printing python args
print(args)
# calling function
main(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)Output:
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Examples of python **kwargs and *args together
Now we are familiar with python kawargs and python args, so we can use them together as well. See the example below:
# Using **kwargs and *args together in python function
def main(*args,**kwargs):
# printing args
print("args: ", args)
# printing python kwargs
print("kwargs: ", kwargs)
# Now we can use both *args ,**kwargs
# to pass arguments to this function :
main('This','is','Python', "tutorial",a="Welcome",b="to",c="python", d="tutorial")Output:
args: ('This', 'is', 'Python', 'tutorial')
kwargs: {'a': 'Welcome', 'b': 'to', 'c': 'python', 'd': 'tutorial'}
Note that the position of python kwargs and args is very important when we used them together.
We should use python args before than python kwargs. If we place python kwargs before python args, we will get error. See the following example.
# Using **kwargs and *args together in python function
def main(**kwargs,*args):
# printing args
print("args: ", args)
# printing python kwargs
print("kwargs: ", kwargs)
# Now we can use both *args ,**kwargs
# to pass arguments to this function :
main(a="Welcome",b="to",c="python", d="tutorial",'This','is','Python', "tutorial")Output:
def main(**kwargs,*args):
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
Python kwargs always takes the last position in the argument place. And when we try to place it before other arguments, we will get SyntaxError as shown above.
Summary
Sometimes in Python, we may come to a situation where we are not sure how many arguments will be provided by the user or the program. Maybe the arguments depend on any other processing which we are not sure about, in such cases python kwargs help us to solve the problem. **kwargs is a dictionary of keyword arguments. The ** allows us to pass any number of keyword arguments. A keyword argument is basically a dictionary. So a python kwargs allows us to pass any number of arguments in key value form ( dictionary). In this tutorial, we learned about python kwargs, from simple syntax to real examples. We come across various different cases and solve the problems using the python kwargs method. Moreover, we also learned the difference between python kwargs and python args and solve related problems.
Further Reading
python kwargs
python kwargs and python args
Python documentation
