Python Parameter List With Single Argument

When testing Python parameter list with a single argument, I found some weird behavior with print. >>> def hi(*x): ... print(x) ... >>> hi() () >>> h

Solution 1:

Actually the behavior is only a little bit "weird." :-)

Your parameter x is prefixed with a star, which means all the arguments you pass to the function will be "rolled up" into a single tuple, and x will be that tuple.

The value (1,) is the way Python writes a tuple of one value, to contrast it with (1), which would be the number 1.

Here is a more general case:

deff(x, *y):
    return"x is {} and y is {}".format(x, y)

Here are some runs:

>>> f(1)
'x is 1 and y is ()'>>> f(1, 2)
'x is 1 and y is (2,)'>>> f(1, 2, 3)
'x is 1 and y is (2, 3)'>>> f(1, 2, 3, 4)
'x is 1 and y is (2, 3, 4)'

Notice how the first argument goes to x and all subsequent arguments are packed into the tuple y. You might just have found the way Python represents tuples with 0 or 1 components a little weird, but it makes sense when you realize that (1) has to be a number and so there has to be some way to represent a single-element tuple. Python just uses the trailing comma as a convention, that's all.