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Python Multiple Function Arguments (*args and **kwargs)

Last Updated : April 25, 2025

Python allows you to pass multiple function arguments using *args and **kwargs, which provides flexibility in handling variable numbers of positional and keyword arguments.

Multiple Function Arguments

The *args and **kwargs is an approach to pass multiple arguments to a Python function. They allow to pass a variable number of arguments to a function. However, please note it is not necessary to name the variables as *args or **kwargs only. Only the * is important. We could also name the variables as *var or **named_vars.

Python *args (Variable-length arguments)

The *args is used to send a non-keyworded variable length argument list to a function.

Example

In this example, the function test_args demonstrates how to handle multiple arguments using *args, printing both the first argument and the additional ones passed as a list:

# Function to extract and print
# the multiple arguments
def test_args(arg1, *argv):
    print("first argument :{}".format(arg1))
    for arg in argv:
        print("argument received :{}".format(arg))

# Function call
test_args("test1", "test2", "test3")

The output of the above code will be:

first argument :test1
argument received :test2
argument received :test3

Python **kwargs (Keyworded variable length arguments)

The **kwargs allows to pass keyworded variable length arguments to a method. The **kwargs is used in order to handle named arguments in a function.

Example

In this example, the function welcome_names demonstrates how to use **kwargs to handle an arbitrary number of keyword arguments and print them as key-value pairs:

# Function for demonstrating the
# use of **kwargs
def welcome_names(**kwargs):
    if kwargs:
        for key, value in kwargs.items():
            print("{} = {}".format(key, value))

# Function call
welcome_names(name="include_help")

The output of the above code will be:

name = include_help

Another Example

In this example, we will print multiple arguments using the *args and **kwargs. Consider the below steps:

Define a function

Let's first define a function and write the print statements to print the arguments.

def test_multiple_args(arg1, arg2, arg3):
    print(arg1)
    print(arg2)
    print(arg3)

Using *args

Now, let's use *args for the above function,

args = ['test1', 1,2]
test_multiple_args(*args)

It will print -

test1
1
2

Using **kwargs

Now, use **kwargs for the above function,

kwargs = {"arg3": 3, "arg2": "two", "arg1": 5}
test_multiple_args(**kwargs)

It will print -

5
two
3

Python Multiple Function Arguments Exercise

Select the correct option to complete each statement about handling multiple arguments in Python functions.

1. In Python, you can define a function that accepts an arbitrary number of positional arguments using the ___ syntax. --Select-- *args **kwargs args
2. To pass a dictionary as keyword arguments to a function, you would use the ___ syntax. --Select-- *args **kwargs args
3. Which of the following is a correct way to call a function that accepts multiple arguments? --Select-- func(1, 2, 3) func(1, 2, 3, 4) func(1, 2)

Check Answers