Getting the keyword arguments actually passed to a

Question

I'm dreaming of a Python method with explicit keyword args:

def func(a=None, b=None, c=None):
    for arg, val in magic_arg_dict.items():   # Where do I get the magic?
        print '%s: %s' % (arg, val)

I want to get a dictionary of only those arguments the caller actually passed into the method, just like **kwargs, but I don't want the caller to be able to pass any old random args, unlike **kwargs.

>>> func(b=2)
b: 2
>>> func(a=3, c=5)
a: 3
c: 5

So: is there such an incantation? In my case, I happen to be able to compare each argument against its default to find the ones that are different, but this is kind of inelegant and gets tedious when you have nine arguments. For bonus points, provide an incantation that can tell me even when the caller passes in a keyword argument assigned its default value:

>>> func(a=None)
a: None

Tricksy!

Edit: The (lexical) function signature has to remain intact. It's part of a public API, and the primary worth of the explicit keyword args lies in their documentary value. Just to make things interesting. :)

Answer 1

Magic is not the answer:

def funky(a=None, b=None, c=None):
    for name, value in [('a', a), ('b', b), ('c', c)]:
        print name, value

Answer 2

How about using a decorator to validate the incoming kwargs?

def validate_kwargs(*keys):
    def entangle(f):
        def inner(*args, **kwargs):
            for key in kwargs:
                if not key in keys:
                    raise ValueError("Received bad kwarg: '%s', expected: %s" % (key, keys))
            return f(*args, **kwargs)
        return inner
    return entangle

###

@validate_kwargs('a', 'b', 'c')
def func(**kwargs):
   for arg,val in kwargs.items():
       print arg, "->", val

func(b=2)
print '----'
func(a=3, c=5)
print '----'
func(d='not gonna work')

Gives this output:

b -> 2
----
a -> 3
c -> 5
----
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "kwargs.py", line 20, in <module>
    func(d='not gonna work')
  File "kwargs.py", line 6, in inner
    raise ValueError("Received bad kwarg: '%s', expected: %s" % (key, keys))
ValueError: Received bad kwarg: 'd', expected: ('a', 'b', 'c')