Pass a list to a function to act as multiple arguments

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Track title: CC L Beethoven - Piano Sonata No 8 in C

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Chapters
00:00 Question
00:32 Accepted answer (Score 358)
00:49 Answer 2 (Score 49)
01:38 Answer 3 (Score 19)
02:00 Thank you

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Full question
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3480...

Accepted answer links:
[Unpacking Argument Lists - The Python Tutorial]: https://docs.python.org/tutorial/control...

Answer 2 links:
[call expression documentation]: https://docs.python.org/2/reference/expr...
[equivalent syntax]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3690...

Answer 3 links:
[PEP 448 - Additional Unpacking Generalizations]: https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.5.h...

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https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/lice...

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Tags
#python #list #parameterpassing

#avk47

ACCEPTED ANSWER

function_that_needs_strings(*my_list) # works!

Yes, you can use the *args (splat) syntax:

function_that_needs_strings(*my_list)

where my_list can be any iterable; Python will loop over the given object and use each element as a separate argument to the function.

There is a keyword-parameter equivalent as well, using two stars:

kwargs = {'foo': 'bar', 'spam': 'ham'}
f(**kwargs)

and there is equivalent syntax for specifying catch-all arguments in a function signature:

def func(*args, **kw):
    # args now holds positional arguments, kw keyword arguments

Since Python 3.5 you can unpack unlimited amount of lists.

So this will work:

a = ['1', '2', '3', '4']
b = ['5', '6']
function_that_needs_strings(*a, *b)