what does *x as a in argument of a method?

[Erik Max Francis]

zeallous wrote:

>    What does the *x mean in the following example?
> 
>     def f(*x):
>         return reduce( lambda a, b: a+b, x)

It means that x will get all of the arguments to the function.  The nice
thing about Python is that since it's got an interactive interpreter you
can fiddle with these things and find out for yourself:

>>> def f(*x): print x
... 
>>> f(1)  
(1,)
>>> f(1, 2, 3)
(1, 2, 3)
>>> def g(**y): print y
... 
>>> g(a=1, b=2, c=3)
{'a': 1, 'c': 3, 'b': 2}
>>> g()
{}
>>> g(1)


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