Positional Arguments

In beginner courses, you may have learned how to work with functions. Let's dive deeper into the capabilities of functions.

Functions can have different types of arguments. Let's describe each type.

Types of Arguments

• Positional arguments
• Optional arguments
• Arbitrary Arguments
• Keyword arguments

Let's start with regular arguments that are widely used.

Positional Arguments

The positional arguments have a position inside the function code:

The argument1 and argument2 are positional arguments.

When you call the function and pass the values, they are placed according to their position:

The "John" string is a first taken value that assigns to the first positional argument name. The Smith is assigned to the surname as the second positional argument.

The order and number of positional arguments are strict, meaning that the values passed to the function must be provided in the correct order and number for each positional argument:

In the example above, the "Smith" is assigned to the name argument, and the "John" is assigned to the surname argument. It's a mistake.

What about the number of positional arguments? If we pass the wrong number of arguments, the interpreter will raise an error:

Keyword Arguments

We can specify the position of an argument using the keyword (argument name) and the assignment (=) operator:

All positional arguments should be provided with values.