what is the my_func() doing?

Question

def my_func(x, y=7, *args, **kwargs):
print(kwargs)

my_func(2, 3, 4, 5, 6, a=7, b=8)

What is the line of code above doing?

Answer 1

For *args, the single asterisk prior to the identifier allows us to store and pass around a number of arguments.

def func(*args):
print(args)
func(1,2,3)

#prints (1, 2, 3)

**kwargs on the other hand allows us to store and pass around a keyworded argument list.

def func(**kwargs):
print(kwargs)
func(a=1,b=2,c=3)

#prints {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}

In your case,

def my_func(x, y=7, *args, **kwargs):
print(kwargs)
my_func(2, 3, 4, 5, 6, a=7, b=8)

would print {'a' : 7, 'b' : 8} since 2 and 3 is assigned to parameters x and y, and 4,5,6 goes to *args.

Answer 2

The line above is calling the function "my_func()" with several parameters. Since the function only wants the kwargs variable to print, unpacking the two variables as a dictionary
kwargs={'a':7, 'b':8} is what this function is doing