I'm relatively new to Python, but I have a lot of experience in languages like C++ and Java. I am trying to parse a string to a function with parameters.
This is what I got so far:

```
def DimLights(percent = 1.0):
    print 'Dimming lights to ' + "{:.2f}".format(percent * 100) + ' percent'

def TurnOffLights():
    print 'Turning off lights'

function_mappings = {'DimLights': DimLights,
                     'TurnOffLights': TurnOffLights}

def select_function():
    while True:
        try:
            return function_mappings[raw_input('Please input the function you want to use')]
        except:
            print 'Invalid function, try again.'

while True:
    function = select_function()
    function()

```

It's working as long as I don't use any parameters, but I can't think of a solution that would work with parameters.
Is there any way I can accomplish this?