Python keyword arguments unpack and return dictionary

Question

I have a function definition as below and I am passing keyword arguments. How do I get to return a dictionary with the same name as the keyword arguments?

Manually I can do:

def generate_student_dict(first_name=None, last_name=None , birthday=None, gender =None):
    return {
        'first_name': first_name,
        'last_name': last_name,
        'birthday': birthday,
        'gender': gender
    }

But I don’t want to do that. Is there any way that I can make this work without actually typing the dict?

 def generate_student_dict(self, first_name=None, last_name=None, birthday=None, gender=None):
     return # Packed value from keyword argument.

Asked By: Karan Kumar

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Source

Answer 1

Get keyword arguments in **kwargs

def generate_student_dict(self, **kwargs):
  # use it like
  # kwargs.get('first_name')
  # kwargs.get('last_name')
  # kwargs.get('birthday')
  # kwargs.get('gender')
  return kwargs

Answered By: Muhammad Tahir

Answer 2

If that way is suitable for you, use kwargs (see Understanding kwargs in Python) as in code snippet below:

def generate_student_dict(self, **kwargs):            
     return kwargs

Otherwise, you can create a copy of params with built-in locals() at function start and return that copy:

def generate_student_dict(first_name=None, last_name=None , birthday=None, gender =None):
     # It's important to copy locals in first line of code (see @MuhammadTahir comment).
     args_passed = locals().copy()
     # some code
     return args_passed

generate_student_dict()

Answered By: Andriy Ivaneyko

Answer 3

If you don’t want to pass **kwargs, you can simply return locals:

def generate_student_dict(first_name=None, last_name=None, 
                          birthday=None, gender=None):
    return locals()

Note that you want to remove self from the result if you pass it as an argument.

Answered By: Maroun

Answer 4

You can use locals() function. locals() updates and returns a dictionary representing the current local symbol table. Free variables are returned by locals() when it is called in function blocks, but not in class blocks.

Answered By: user2719152

Answer 5

In case you want to return the updated values as dictionary

    def generate_student_dict(first_name=None, last_name=None , birthday=None, gender =None):
        main_args = locals().copy()
        first_name = 'first'
        last_name = 'last'
        birthday = '20 jan 1993'
        newvar = 100
        new_args = locals().copy()
        updated_args = {}

        for k,v in new_args.items():
            if k in main_args.keys():
                updated_args[k] = v
        return updated_args

    dict = generate_student_dict()
    print(dict) #{'first_name': 'first', 'last_name': 'last', 'birthday': '20 jan 1993', 'gender': None}

In case you want to return the iniital values as dictionary

    def generate_student_dict_1(first_name=None, last_name=None , birthday=None, gender =None):
        args = locals()
        first_name = 'first'
        last_name = 'last'
        birthday = '20 jan 1993'
        newvar = 100
        return args

    dict = generate_student_dict_1()
    print(dict) #{'first_name': None, 'last_name': None, 'birthday': None, 'gender': None}

if you want to include all the changes including extra variables defined inside the method

    def generate_student_dict_2(first_name=None, last_name=None , birthday=None, gender =None):
        first_name = 'first'
        last_name = 'last'
        birthday = '20 jan 1993'
        newvar = 100
        args = locals()
        return args

    dict = generate_student_dict_2()
    print(dict) #{'first_name': 'first', 'last_name': 'last', 'birthday': '20 jan 1993', 'gender': None, 'newvar': 100}

Answered By: niranjan patidar

Answer 6

To convert keyword only arguments to dict you can easily use this helper

Answered By: delatars

Python keyword arguments unpack and return dictionary

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