What does this stuff mean: *args , **kwargs? Why would we use it?

In Python, *args and **kwargs are special syntax elements used in function definitions to handle variable numbers of arguments. *args allows a function to accept any number of positional arguments, while **kwargs allows it to accept any number of keyword arguments.

Understanding *args

The *args is used to gather additional positional arguments in a function. This means that the function can accept more arguments than the number of formal arguments that it is defined to accept. The arguments passed to *args are accessible as a tuple within the function. For example, if a function is defined as def function_name(*args):, it can be called with any number of positional arguments like function_name(1, 2, 3), and these values will be accessible as a tuple (1, 2, 3) inside the function[1][3][8].

Understanding **kwargs

The **kwargs allows a function to accept any number of keyword arguments (arguments specified by name). This is useful when you want to handle named arguments that you have not explicitly defined in your function signature. Inside the function, kwargs is a dictionary where each key is the name of the argument, and each value is the corresponding argument's value. For instance, defining a function as def function_name(**kwargs): allows it to be called with any number of keyword arguments like function_name(first_name="John", last_name="Doe"), and these will be accessible inside the function as {'first_name': 'John', 'last_name': 'Doe'}[1][3][8].

Why Use *args and **kwargs?

1. Flexibility in Function Signatures: Both *args and **kwargs provide flexibility in function signatures, making it possible to write functions that can handle a varying number of input arguments without needing to define each one explicitly[1][3][8].

2. Convenience in Function Calls: They allow for more flexible code tha...