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As mentioned in PythonCookbook, *
can be added before a tuple, and what does *
mean here?
Chapter 1.18. Mapping Names to Sequence Elements:
from collections import namedtuple
Stock = namedtuple('Stock', ['name', 'shares', 'price'])
s = Stock(*rec)
# here rec is an ordinary tuple, for example: rec = ('ACME', 100, 123.45)
In the same section, **dict
presents:
from collections import namedtuple
Stock = namedtuple('Stock', ['name', 'shares', 'price', 'date', 'time'])
# Create a prototype instance
stock_prototype = Stock('', 0, 0.0, None, None)
# Function to convert a dictionary to a Stock
def dict_to_stock(s):
return stock_prototype._replace(**s)
What is **
's function here?
In a function call
*t
means "treat the elements of this tuple as positional arguments to this function call."
def foo(x, y):
print(x, y)
>>> t = (1, 2)
>>> foo(*t)
1 2
Since v3.5, you can also do this in a list/tuple/set literals:
>>> [1, *(2, 3), 4]
[1, 2, 3, 4]
**d
means "treat the key-value pairs in the dictionary as additional named arguments to this function call."
def foo(x, y):
print(x, y)
>>> d = {'x':1, 'y':2}
>>> foo(**d)
1 2
Since v3.5, you can also do this in a dictionary literals:
>>> d = {'a': 1}
>>> {'b': 2, **d}
{'b': 2, 'a': 1}
In a function signature
*t
means "take all additional positional arguments to this function and pack them into this parameter as a tuple."
def foo(*t):
print(t)
>>> foo(1, 2)
(1, 2)
**d
means "take all additional named arguments to this function and insert them into this parameter as dictionary entries."
def foo(**d):
print(d)
>>> foo(x=1, y=2)
{'y': 2, 'x': 1}
In assignments and for
loops
*x
means "consume additional elements in the right hand side", but it doesn't have to be the last item. Note that x
will always be a list:
>>> x, *xs = (1, 2, 3, 4)
>>> x
1
>>> xs
[2, 3, 4]
>>> *xs, x = (1, 2, 3, 4)
>>> xs
[1, 2, 3]
>>> x
4
>>> x, *xs, y = (1, 2, 3, 4)
>>> x
1
>>> xs
[2, 3]
>>> y
4
>>> for (x, *y, z) in [ (1, 2, 3, 4) ]: print(x, y, z)
...
1 [2, 3] 4