Learn Web Development with Python

Variable positional arguments

Sometimes you may want to pass a variable number of positional arguments to a function, and Python provides you with the ability to do it. Let's look at a very common use case, the minimum function. This is a function that calculates the minimum of its input values:

# arguments.variable.positional.pydef minimum(*n):    # print(type(n))  # n is a tuple    if n:  # explained after the code        mn = n[0]        for value in n[1:]:            if value < mn:                mn = value        print(mn)minimum(1, 3, -7, 9)  # n = (1, 3, -7, 9) - prints: -7minimum()             # n = () - prints: nothing

As you can see, when we specify a parameter prepending a * to its name, we are telling Python that that parameter will be collecting a variable number of positional arguments, according ...