What is the role of "*" inside of a Python3 print function?

Question

What is the role of "*" inside of a print function in Python?

print ("Hello World!\n")
print (*"Hello World!\n")

Output of the first print function is

 Hello World!

Output of the second function is

H e l l o   W o r l d !

But in python 2.7 it does not work!

This doesn't apply *just* to the `print()` function but to *all* function calls. — Martijn Pieters, Sep 28 '13 at 06:50
Also see [What do \*args and \*\*kwargs mean?](http://stackoverflow.com/q/287085) — Martijn Pieters, Sep 28 '13 at 06:52
This only works for function calls, not for statements. In Python 3, `print` is not a statement, but a function. — glglgl, Sep 28 '13 at 09:04

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 28 '13 at 06:51

* unpacks the sequence given, for example:

>>> print(*[1, 2, 3])
1 2 3

Here, it unpacks the list and prints out each individual item.

In your example, as strings are also a sequence, it prints out each letter separated by a space. Think of the string "Hello world!" as ['H', 'e', 'l', etc]

What is the role of "*" inside of a Python3 print function?

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