Keyword Arguments

Keyword Arguments
	Chapter 7. Functions

If you have some functions with many parameters and you want to specify only some of them, then you can give values for such parameters by naming them - this is called keyword arguments - we use the name (keyword) instead of the position (which we have been using all along) to specify the arguments to the function.

There are two advantages - one, using the function is easier since we do not need to worry about the order of the arguments. Two, we can give values to only those parameters which we want, provided that the other parameters have default argument values.

Using Keyword Arguments

Example 7.6. Using Keyword Arguments

				
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_key.py

def func(a, b=5, c=10):
	print 'a is', a, 'and b is', b, 'and c is', c

func(3, 7)
func(25, c=24)
func(c=50, a=100)

Output

				
$ python func_key.py
a is 3 and b is 7 and c is 10
a is 25 and b is 5 and c is 24
a is 100 and b is 5 and c is 50

How It Works

The function named func has one parameter without default argument values, followed by two parameters with default argument values.

In the first usage, func(3, 7), the parameter a gets the value 3, the parameter b gets the value 5 and c gets the default value of 10.

In the second usage func(25, c=24), the variable a gets the value of 25 due to the position of the argument. Then, the parameter c gets the value of 24 due to naming i.e. keyword arguments. The variable b gets the default value of 5.

In the third usage func(c=50, a=100), we use keyword arguments completely to specify the values. Notice, that we are specifying value for parameter c before that for a even though a is defined before c in the function definition.


Default Argument Values		The return statement