Stackoverflow question: Is there a built-in identity function in Python?

[Ben Finney]

Ethan Furman <ethan at stoneleaf.us> writes:

> My contention is that an identity function is a do-nothing function
> that simply returns what it was given:
>
> --> identity(1)
> 1
>
> --> identity('spam')
> 'spam'

These seem good to me. One argument given, the same result returned.

> --> identity('spam', 'eggs', 7)
> ('spam', 'eggs', 7)

That's a confusingly inconsistent result, as pointed out by other
responses in this thread.

I would expect an identity function to accept exactly one positional
argument. Given more than one positional argument, it should raise a
TypeError.

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Ben Finney