*args and **kwargs

[Wildemar Wildenburger]

JonathanB wrote:
> Ok, this is probably definitely a newbie question, but I have looked
> all over the Python library reference material and tutorials which I
> can find online and I cannot find a clear definition of what these are
> and more importantly how to use them. From what I can tell from their
> use in the examples I've seen, they are for passing a variable number
> of arguments to a function (which I need to do in a program I am
> working on). But how do you use them? Is there a fixed order in which
> the arguments within *arg or **kwarg should be passed or will be
> called within a function? I realize this probably involves a long-
> winded answer to a very simple and common programming problem, so if
> someone has a link to TFM, I'll gladly go RTFM. I just can't find it.
>
>   
http://www.python.org/doc/faq/programming/#how-can-i-pass-optional-or-keyword-parameters-from-one-function-to-another
(the first hit when you search python.org for *args and **kwargs)

Basically 'args' is a tuple with all the positional arguments, kwargs is 
a dictionary with all the named arguments.
Likewise you can pass a tuple to a function like func(*tuple), or a dict 
like func(**dictionary) or both, where the zuple has to come first.