[Tutor] parameters vs arguments

Kristin Wilcox wilcoxwork at gmail.com
Thu Nov 5 02:08:49 CET 2009


I'm just starting to learn Python, and some of the vocabulary has me a bit
confused. I was hoping someone could help me out. People were so helpful
last time!

I'm reading stuff from multiple sources, and it seems to me like the words
"parameters" and "arguments" are used interchangeably. But I'm not sure if
this is a wrong perception, due to my lack of understanding, or if these
terms are truly synonyms.

When I define, say, function example like this...
def example(x,y):

are x and y arguments? or parameters?

And when I call the function and pass it values

example(32,17) are those values arguments or parameters? I *thought* this
was called 'passing arguments'...

I actually thought x and y would be referred to as arguments in both cases,
but then sometimes I think I hear them called parameters.

Help? Am I missing some nuances here?

Thanks for reading!

-Kris
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