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Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Tuples Packing

Packing Challenge...

Hi, I'm having trouble figuring out what this challenge wants me to do - I thought I had a better idea as to what it was asking, but I guess I don't - I would appreciate any help that someone could provide - Below is the code that I tried to use for this challenge - Thank you in advance...

"Let's play with the *args pattern. Create a function named multiply that takes any number of arguments. Return the product (multiplied value) of all of the supplied arguments. The type of argument shouldn't matter."

twoples.py
def multiply("Melanie", "Amil", "Jackllin", "Kelvar"):
    for m in multiply:
        total = total * multiply
    return total

5 Answers

Umesh Ravji
Umesh Ravji
42,386 Points

Okay, this problem has two aspects that you need to understand. The first is being able to deal with any number of arguments and then being able to iterate over the arguments in order to do something with them. I'm going to use a different, but similar, function to demonstrate these two points.

1. Accepting any number of arguments.

def add_all(*numbers):
    pass

print(add_all(1, 2, 3, 4, 5))  # None
print(add_all(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,9))  # None

The add_all function is able to accept any number of arguments. The asterisk in front of the numbers parameter packs up all of the arguments into a single tuple named numbers that can be iterated over using a for loop.

2. Iterating over the arguments.

def add_all(*numbers):
    total = 0
    for number in numbers:
        total += number
    return total

print(add_all(1, 2, 3, 4, 5))  # 15
print(add_all(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,9))  # 45

Since you have all of the arguments packed together into a tuple named numbers, iterating over them using a for loop and doing something with each number is just like any other for loop.

Okay, so, I tried it again, and this is what I came up with:

def multiply(18, 34, 28, 37):
    total = 1
for total = total * m
return total

Okay, does anyone know of any free tutoring in Python that I can look into, because I'm really not getting this - Maybe it's my dyslexia, but my mind isn't wrapping around any of this very well - Sorry, if I'm a little slow with all this, but I do appreciate your efforts to at least try and help me understand... P

Umesh Ravji
Umesh Ravji
42,386 Points

Hey SC3 Rocks, in a nutshell the question wants you to create a function that is able to take any number of arguments and multiply them all together. So calling multiply(3,4) and multiply(3,4,5,6,7,8) should work. You are in the right direction for sure.

def multiply(*args):
    total = 1
    # Multiply all the values with the total using a loop... for x in args
    return total

Not entirely sure I understand what you're saying, Umesh, but I'll give it a try...