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Home Interviews What are Python’s *args and **kwargs? – MindStick
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1 Answers

ICSM Computer
ICSM Computer 31 Aug 2025
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1. *args (Non-keyword arguments)

This is used to pass a variable number of accepted arguments to a function. Inside the function, args is treated as a tuple.

Example:

def sum_numbers(*args):
    return sum(args)

print(sum_numbers(1, 2))         # 3
print(sum_numbers(1, 2, 3, 4))   # 10

Here, *args lets the function many number of positional values as arguments.

2. **kwargs (Keyword arguments)

This is used to pass a variable number of keyword arguments (key=value) pair to a function. Inside the function, kwargs is treated as a dictionary.

Example:

def show_details(**kwargs):
    for key, value in kwargs.items():
        print(f"{key}: {value}")

show_details(name="Alice", age=25, city="New York")

Output:

name: Alice
age: 25
city: New York

3. Using *args and **kwargs together

This can use both in the same function, but *args must come before **kwargs.

Example:

def show_information(*args, **kwargs):
    print("Positional:", args)
    print("Keyword:", kwargs)

show_information(10, 20, 30, name="Alice 2", age=85)

Output:

Positional: (10, 20, 30)
Keyword: {'name': 'Alice 2', 'age': 85}

4. Argument unpacking

This can also use * and ** when calling functions to unpack values.

Example:

def greet(name, age):
    print(f"Hello {name}, you are {age} years old.")

args = ("Bob", 30)
kwargs = {"name": "Charlie", "age": 40}

greet(*args)      # Hello Bob, you are 30 years old.
greet(**kwargs)   # Hello Charlie, you are 40 years old.

In short:

  • *args → collects extra positional arguments into a tuple.
  • **kwargs → collects extra keyword arguments into a dictionary.
  • They make functions more flexible and reusable.
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