Different Types of Arguments

Python offers several ways to pass arguments into a function, giving you flexibility in how a function can be called. Understanding each type helps you write functions that are both powerful and easy to use.

Positional Arguments

Values are matched to parameters based purely on their order in the function call.

def divide(a, b):
    return a / b

divide(10, 2)   # a = 10, b = 2

Keyword Arguments

Values are passed using the parameter's name, so the order in which you pass them no longer matters.

divide(b=2, a=10)   # same result as above

Default Arguments

As covered earlier, these use a fallback value when no argument is explicitly supplied for that parameter.

Arbitrary Arguments: *args and **kwargs

*args lets a function accept any number of positional arguments as a tuple, while **kwargs lets it accept any number of keyword arguments as a dictionary.

def total(*args):
    return sum(args)

total(1, 2, 3, 4)   # 10

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

show_details(name="Abhay", course="Data Science")

*args and **kwargs are especially useful when you're building reusable functions or libraries where you don't know in advance exactly how many values the caller will pass in.

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