How to set multiple function keywords at once, in Python 2?

Question

all.

I was wondering if it was possible to set multiple keywords at once (via list?) in a function call.

For example, if you do:

foo, bar = 1, 2
print(foo, bar)

The output is (1,2).

For the function

def printer(foo, bar)
    print(foo,bar)

Is it possible to do something like:

printer([foo, bar] = [1,2])

where both keywords are being set with a list?

In particular, the reason why I ask is because I have a function that returns two variables, scale and offset:

def scaleOffset(...):
    'stuff happens here

    return [scale, offset]

I would like to pass both of these variables to a different function that accepts them as keywords, perhaps as a nested call.

def secondFunction(scale=None, offset=None):
    'more stuff

So far I haven't found a way of doing a call like this:

secondFunction([scale,offset] = scaleOffset())

It may be worth noting that in Python 2, `print` is a statement, not a function. `print(foo, bar)` may be misleading, since the parentheses are creating a tuple, not passing arguments to a function. In Python 3, `print` is a function and you can use things like `*args` syntax. You can get the Python 3 sematics by putting `from __future__ import print_function` at the top of your file (before any other line that's not also a `from __future__ import ...` statement). — Blckknght, Oct 18 '16 at 21:38

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 18 '16 at 21:32

3

To pass args as a list

arg_list = ["foo", "bar"]
my_func(*arg_list)

To pass kwargs, use a dictionary

kwarg_dict = {"keyword": "value"}    
my_func(**kwarg_dict)

answered Oct 18 '16 at 21:32

sytech

Perfect! Turns out I needed a dict after all. Thanks! – dgikmo Oct 18 '16 at 21:45

1 Answers1