Flexible arguments

Put * before a parameter and it collects any extra positional arguments into a tuple. Put ** before one and it collects extra keyword arguments into a dict. The names args and kwargs are just a convention. The stars work the other way when calling: total(*values) spreads a list into separate arguments.

How it reads

• *numbers is a tuple of every positional argument, even none
• **details is a dict of every name=value argument
• total(*scores) unpacks the list into three separate arguments

Cloud tip: Order matters in a definition: normal parameters, then *args, then keyword-only ones, then **kwargs.