argument

Arguments in functions are values that you pass to the function when you call it. These values are used by the function to perform operations or calculations. Python functions can have various types of arguments:

Positional Arguments: These are arguments that need to be included in the proper position or order. The function definition determines the number and order of these arguments.

Keyword Arguments: These are arguments passed to a function by explicitly specifying the name of the parameter, regardless of their order in the function definition.

Default Arguments: You can assign default values to arguments in the function definition. If the caller does not provide a value for an argument with a default value, the function uses the default value.

Variable-length Arguments: Sometimes, you might not know in advance how many arguments will be passed into your function. Python allows you to handle this kind of situation through variable-length arguments. You can use *args for non-keyword variable-length arguments and **kwargs for keyword variable-length arguments.

Here's an example illustrating all these types of arguments:

def introduce_yourself(name, greeting="Hello", *interests, **personal_details):
   """
   name: positional argument
   greeting: default argument
   *interests: variable-length argument (tuple)
   **personal_details: keyword variable-length argument (dictionary)
   """
   print(f"{greeting}, my name is {name}.")
   if interests:
       print("I'm interested in:", ", ".join(interests))
   for key, value in personal_details.items():
       print(f"My {key} is {value}.")
# Calling the function
introduce_yourself("Alice", "Hi", "coding", "reading", age=30, profession="developer")

In this example, name is a positional argument, greeting is a default argument, *interests collects any additional positional arguments as a tuple, and **personal_details collects additional keyword arguments as a dictionary. The function prints a message based on these inputs.