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Konrad Hunter
3,629 PointsWhy do you set the variable to None?
here's the code in question. def unpacker(first_name = None, last_name = None): if first_name and last_name: print("Hi {} {}!".format(first_name,last_name)) else: print("Hi no name!") What does setting the variable to none accomplish? I rewrote it to exclude the '= None' and it did the same thing.
4 Answers
Dustin James
11,364 PointsHere we are defaulting the inputs as None. You can override this when calling the function, but if you do not override the arguments, you will receive back "Hi no name!"
Tane Martin
2,348 PointsHey Adam, in that situation, it was set up like this
def packer(name = None, **kwargs):
print(kwargs)
packer(name = 'kenneth', num = 42, spi = None)
You're right - he did override the name, but the print function was only setup to print the kwargs, not name
Adam Cameron
Python Web Development Techdegree Graduate 16,731 PointsI'm confused though - Kenneth appears to override name=None when he calls packer(), but at about 3:14 in the video, but the function doesn't return 'name'. Why is this?
Michael Neimat
2,680 PointsI think he did this to show you that **kwargs is acting like a catch all. anything that was not defined was caught and put in the dictionary.