same as func( = = = = againwe can combine normalpositionaland keyword arguments in the call in very flexible waysfunc(*( )**{' ' ' ' } func( *( )**{' ' } func( = *( ,)**{' ' } func( *( ) = func( *( ,) = **{' ': } same as func( = = same as func( = same as func( = = same as func( = same as func( = = this sort of code is convenient when you cannot predict the number of arguments that will be passed to function when you write your scriptyou can build up collection of arguments at runtime instead and call the function generically this way againdon' confuse the */*starred-argument syntax in the function header and the function call --in the header it collects any number of argumentswhile in the call it unpacks any number of arguments in bothone star means positionalsand two applies to keywords as we saw in the *pargs form in call is an iteration contextso technically it accepts any iterable objectnot just tuples or other sequences as shown in the examples here for instancea file object works after the *and unpacks its lines into individual arguments ( func(*open('fname')watch for additional examples of this utility in after we study generators this generality is supported in both python and xbut it holds true only for calls-- *pargs in call allows any iterablebut the same form in def header always bundles extra arguments into tuple this header behavior is similar in spirit and syntax to the in python extended sequence unpacking assignment forms we met in ( * )though that star usage always creates listsnot tuples applying functions generically the prior section' examples may seem academic (if not downright esoteric)but they are used more often than you might expect some programs need to call arbitrary functions in generic fashionwithout knowing their names or arguments ahead of time in factthe real power of the special "varargscall syntax is that you don' need to know how many arguments function call requires before you write script for exampleyou can use if logic to select from set of functions and argument listsand call any of them generically (functions in some of the following examples are hypothetical) arguments