The *args and **kwargs is a common idiom to allow arbitrary number of arguments to functions as described in the section more on defining functions in the Python documentation.
The *args will give you all function parameters as a tuple:
def foo(*args):
for a in args:
print(a)
foo(1)
# 1
foo(1,2,3)
# 1
# 2
# 3
The **kwargs will give you all
keyword arguments except for those corresponding to a formal parameter as a dictionary.
def bar(**kwargs):
for a in kwargs:
print(a, kwargs[a])
bar(name='one', age=27)
# name one
# age 27
Both idioms can be mixed with normal arguments to allow a set of fixed and some variable arguments:
def foo(kind, *args, **kwargs):
pass
It is also possible to use this the other way around:
def foo(a, b, c):
print(a, b, c)
obj = {'b':10, 'c':'lee'}
foo(100,**obj)
# 100 10 lee
Another usage of the *l idiom is to unpack argument lists when calling a function.
def foo(bar, lee):
print(bar, lee)
l = [1,2]
foo(*l)
# 1 2
In Python 3 it is possible to use *l on the left side of an assignment (Extended Iterable Unpacking), though it gives a list instead of a tuple in this context:
first, *rest = [1,2,3,4]
first, *l, last = [1,2,3,4]
Also Python 3 adds new semantic (refer PEP 3102):
def func(arg1, arg2, arg3, *, kwarg1, kwarg2):
pass
Such function accepts only 3 positional arguments, and everything after * can only be passed as keyword arguments.
Note:
- A Python
dict, semantically used for keyword argument passing, are arbitrarily ordered. However, in Python 3.6, keyword arguments are guaranteed to remember insertion order.
- "The order of elements in
**kwargs now corresponds to the order in which keyword arguments were passed to the function." - What’s New In Python 3.6
- In fact, all dicts in CPython 3.6 will remember insertion order as an implementation detail, this becomes standard in Python 3.7.
Since 1.8.5 it's possible to seal and freeze the object, so define the above as:
const DaysEnum = Object.freeze({"monday":1, "tuesday":2, "wednesday":3, ...})
or
const DaysEnum = {"monday":1, "tuesday":2, "wednesday":3, ...}
Object.freeze(DaysEnum)
and voila! JS enums.
However, this doesn't prevent you from assigning an undesired value to a variable, which is often the main goal of enums:
let day = DaysEnum.tuesday
day = 298832342 // goes through without any errors
One way to ensure a stronger degree of type safety (with enums or otherwise) is to use a tool like TypeScript or Flow.
Quotes aren't needed but I kept them for consistency.
Best Solution
It creates a hashmap where the symbol :port is the key and the value is 80.