Keyword Arguments

Functions and methods written in Python can now be called using keyword arguments of the form keyword = value. For instance, the following function:

def parrot(voltage, state='a stiff', action='voom', type='Norwegian Blue'):
    print "-- This parrot wouldn't", action,
    print "if you put", voltage, "Volts through it."
    print "-- Lovely plumage, the", type
    print "-- It's", state, "!"

could be called in any of the following ways:

parrot(1000)
parrot(action = 'VOOOOOM', voltage = 1000000)
parrot('a thousand', state = 'pushing up the daisies')
parrot('a million', 'bereft of life', 'jump')

but the following calls would all be invalid:

parrot()                     # required argument missing
parrot(voltage=5.0, 'dead')  # non-keyword argument following keyword
parrot(110, voltage=220)     # duplicate value for argument
parrot(actor='John Cleese')  # unknown keyword

In general, an argument list must have the form: zero or more positional arguments followed by zero or more keyword arguments, where the keywords must be chosen from the formal parameter names. It's not important whether a formal parameter has a default value or not. No argument must receive a value more than once -- formal parameter names corresponding to positional arguments cannot be used as keywords in the same calls.

Note that no special syntax is required to allow a function to be called with keyword arguments. The additional costs incurred by keyword arguments are only present when a call uses them.

(As far as I know, these rules are exactly the same as used by Modula-3, even if they are enforced by totally different means. This is intentional.)

When a final formal parameter of the form **name is present, it receives a dictionary containing all keyword arguments whose keyword doesn't correspond to a formal parameter. This may be combined with a formal parameter of the form *name which receives a tuple containing the positional arguments beyond the formal parameter list. (*name must occur before **name.) For example, if we define a function like this:

def cheeseshop(kind, *arguments, **keywords):
    print "-- Do you have any", kind, '?'
    print "-- I'm sorry, we're all out of", kind
    for arg in arguments: print arg
    print '-'*40
    for kw in keywords.keys(): print kw, ':', keywords[kw]

It could be called like this:

cheeseshop('Limburger', "It's very runny, sir.",
           "It's really very, VERY runny, sir.",
           client='John Cleese',
           shopkeeper='Michael Palin',
           sketch='Cheese Shop Sketch')

and of course it would print:

-- Do you have any Limburger ?
-- I'm sorry, we're all out of Limburger
It's very runny, sir.
It's really very, VERY runny, sir.
----------------------------------------
client : John Cleese
shopkeeper : Michael Palin
sketch : Cheese Shop Sketch

Consequences of this change include:

• The built-in function apply() now has an optional third argument, which is a dictionary specifying any keyword arguments to be passed. For example,

  apply(parrot, (), {'voltage': 20, 'action': 'voomm'})
  

  is equivalent to

  parrot(voltage=20, action='voomm')
  

• There is also a mechanism for functions and methods defined in an extension module (i.e., implemented in C or C++) to receive a dictionary of their keyword arguments. By default, such functions do not accept keyword arguments, since the argument names are not available to the interpreter.

• In the effort of implementing keyword arguments, function and especially method calls have been sped up significantly -- for a method with ten formal parameters, the call overhead has been cut in half; for a function with one formal parameters, the overhead has been reduced by a third.

• The format of .pyc files has changed (again).

• The access statement has been disabled. The syntax is still recognized but no code is generated for it. (There were some unpleasant interactions with changes for keyword arguments, and my plan is to get rid of access altogether in favor of a different approach.)