How to skip optional arguments in python, and call *args directly

Question

I'm creating a very basic match-market solution that would be used in betting shops. I have a function that looks like this:

def create_market(name, match, providerID=str(uuid.uuid4()), market_kind=4, *market_parameters):

I want to call a function with only name, match and market_parameters while skipping the providerID, and market_kind (since these are optional)

Keep in mind that *market_parameters will be a tuple of dicts that will be sent inside the function. I unpack it like:

for idx, data in enumerate(args):
    for k, v in data.iteritems():
        if 'nWays' in k:
            set_value = v

When I set this dict like

market_parameters = {'nWays' : 5}

and call a function like create_market('Standard', 1, *market_parameters)

I can't seem to get the data inside the function body.

What am I doing wrong?

"*market_parameters will be a dict" - tuple, for positional parameters; **kwargs would be the dictionary. — jonrsharpe
– jonrsharpe, Commented Nov 24, 2016 at 12:12
@jonrsharpe yes, that's correct :) I was about to write that *market_parameters will be an unknown number of dicts that would be passed as a list (tuple) into a function. — mutantkeyboard
– mutantkeyboard, Commented Nov 24, 2016 at 12:18

Yevhen Kuzmovych · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-24 12:07:50Z

2

By unpacking it like *market_parameters, you send unpacked values as a providerID (if you have more values in your dictionary then as providerID, market_kind and so on).

You probably need

def create_market(name, match, *market_parameters,
                  providerID=str(uuid.uuid4()), market_kind=4):

and call function like:

create_market('Standard', 1, market_parameters) # you don't need to unpack it.

and if you want to set providerID or market_kind then:

create_market('Standard', 1, market_parameters, providerID=your_provider_id, market_kind=your_market_kind)

answered Nov 24, 2016 at 12:07

Yevhen Kuzmovych

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2 Comments

mutantkeyboard Over a year ago

Yes. That's it. Thank you @Yevhen Kuzmovych. You're a life saver.

Yevhen Kuzmovych Over a year ago

@mutantkeyboard I am not sure what you are trying to do but kwargs can be useful.

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