6.5 Keyword arguments
Let’s define a function that encapsulates pow from math:
import math
def raiser(base, exponent):
return math.pow(base, exponent)
I can call raiser using positional arguments,
where Python assigns the first argument to base and the second to
exponent.
raiser(2, 3)
8.0
I can also explicitly use the names of the parameters in keyword arguments.
raiser(base=2, exponent=3)
8.0
By itself, that’s not very exciting, but it is clearer what the arguments are providing to the function. You can use keyword arguments in any order.
raiser(exponent=3, base=2)
8.0
Positional arguments must come before keyword arguments. This works:
raiser(2, exponent=3)
8.0
but this does not:
raiser(base=2, 3)
SyntaxError: positional argument follows keyword argument
If you want to force users of your code to pass keyword arguments...
