Python's **kwargs: What is it?

1 Python’s **kwargs: What is it?

In Python, **kwargs is a special syntax that allows you to pass a variable number of keyword arguments to a function.

2 How does it work?

**kwargs is a dictionary where the keys are the names of the keyword arguments and the values are the values of the keyword arguments.

3 How to use it?

To use **kwargs, you simply need to add ** to the end of the parameter name in the function definition. For example:

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def my_function(**kwargs):
  for key, value in kwargs.items():
    print(key, ": ", value)

This function can be called with any number of keyword arguments. For example:

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my_function(name="John", age=30, city="New York")

This will print:

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name: John
age: 30
city: New York

4 Using Dictionary Functions

Since **kwargs is a dictionary, you can use familiar dictionary functions like:

• kwargs.get(key, default): Retrieves the value of a key, or returns a default value if the key doesn’t exist.
• kwargs.keys(): Returns a view object containing all the keys.
• kwargs.values(): Returns a view object containing all the values.
• kwargs.items(): Returns a view object containing all key-value pairs.

5 What are the benefits of using **kwargs?

**kwargs can be useful when you want to create a function that can accept a variable number of keyword arguments. This can be helpful when you are designing a function that needs to be flexible enough to handle different types of input.

6 Conclusion

**kwargs is a powerful tool that can be used to create more flexible and reusable functions.

– Happy Coding –