Examples of pythons *args + **kwargs magic variables.

args_kwargs.py

# in a function definition
# *args and **kwargs allow you to pass a variable number of args to a function

# *args is for a non-keyworded variable length argument list
def test_var_args(f_arg, *argv):
    print "first normal arg:", f_arg
    for arg in argv:
        print "another arg through *argv:", arg

# test_var_args('Matt', 1, 2, 3, {}, 'bologna')

# **kwargs is for keyworded varaible length arguments (ie, named arguments)
def greet_me(**kwargs):
    if kwargs is not None:
        for key, value in kwargs.iteritems():
            print '%s == %s' % (key, value)

# greet_me(name='Greg', height="5'7\"", gender='male')


# in a function call
# *args and **kwargs "unpack" arguments provided with this special syntax
def test_args_kwargs(arg1, arg2, arg3):
    print 'arg1:', arg1
    print 'arg2:', arg2
    print 'arg3:', arg3

# args = ('banana', 3, [])
# test_args_kwargs(*args)

# kwargs = {'arg1': 'a', 'arg2': 15, 'arg3': None}
# test_args_kwargs(**kwargs)