CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonmethodsarguments
ib.lundgren
ib.lundgren

Reputation: 1544

Pythonic argument passing

Which one of these two method invocations is considered most pythonic?

some_method(that_has, very_many, aurguments=None, of_different=None, 
            kinds=u'', and_importance=None, spanning=u'multple lines'):

or 

method_args = {
   u'first_arg' : that_has,
   u'second_arg' : very_many,
   u'arguments' : None,
   u'of_different' : None,
   u'kinds' : u'',
   u'and_importance' : None,
   u'spanning' : u'multiple lines'
}
some_method(**method_args)

Personally I prefer the second when the first spans more than 2 lines and the first way if it fits in one line, for two lines I am not quite certain.

Edit: The passed arguments might not be as short and static as in my example, more likely to be quite long names.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 104

Answers (2)

Preet Kukreti
Preet Kukreti

Reputation: 8607

Whatever is more readable.

Once you reach a certain level of complexity for a function's arguments, it can be worthwhile to actually define a class which encapsulates those arguments:

args = SomeMethodArgs() # custom args class for the some_method func

args.x = 2
args.y = "a string"
args.z = None
args.items = [a, b, c]

some_method(args)

This has the benefit that you can modify the number of arguments or the signature later on in one place with minimal collateral effect.

Upvotes: 0

orlp
orlp

Reputation: 117661

If it's just a static call like that, the above is more Pythonic. If you want (and some people actually do this) you can align it like this:

some_method(
    that_has,
    very_many,
    arguments=None,
    of_different=None, 
    kinds=u'',
    and_importance=None,
    spanning=u'multple lines'
)

Also note that your second way doesn't even work - it only passes keyword arguments (to arguments that might not even be keywords).

Upvotes: 2

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