Python TypeError: got an unexpected keyword argument 'name'

Question

I am new to python and recently I just learned the basic of *args and **kwargs.

When I try to practice with my own code, I got an error of unexpected keyword as shown below:

def student_info2(args, kwargs):
    print(args)
    print(kwargs)

courses = ["Maths", "Statistics"]
module = "Data Science"
students = {"name": "John Price", "age": 27}
welcome_words = {"welcome": "hello and welcome"}
student_info2(*courses, *module, **students, **welcome_words)

TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-61-8bc2f643a250> in <module>
      7 students = {"name":"John Price","age":27}
      8 welcome_words = {"welcome":"hello and welcome"}
----> 9 student_info2(*courses,*module, **students, **welcome_words)

TypeError: student_info2() got an unexpected keyword argument 'name'

I really have no idea why this is happening, really appreciated if someone could help me solve this problem.

Answer 1

def student_info2(args,kwargs):
    print(args)
    print(kwargs)

This function will work just fine, but it will be limited to only 2 arguments namely args and kwargs . At this point the args and kwargs are just 2 variables names, they will not act as you intend them to because you have not used them with unpacking operator like *args and **kwargs .

*args and **kwargs are used to give function varying number of input arguments. args , kwargs is just a variable name that can be changed to whatever you need it to be.

def student_info2(*args, **kwargs):
    print(args)
    print(kwargs)

NOTE:

• *args accepts iterables or positional arguments and **kwargs accepts keyword or named arguments.
• *args must come before **kwargs when defining the function parameters.

Answer 2

You don't need *s there, you should put them in the declaration of your function. Also if you give a function 4 parameters, you should receive 4.

def student_info2(arg1, arg2, arg3, arg4):
    print(arg1)
    print(arg2)
    print(arg3)
    print(arg4)
    

courses = ["Maths","Statistics"]
module = "Data Science"
students = {"name":"John Price","age":27}
welcome_words = {"welcome":"hello and welcome"}
student_info2(courses, module, students, welcome_words)

If you would like to receive X amount of parameters, you should do

def student_info2(*args):
    print(args)
    

courses = ["Maths","Statistics"]
module = "Data Science"
students = {"name":"John Price","age":27}
welcome_words = {"welcome":"hello and welcome"}
student_info2(courses, module, students, welcome_words)

Where args will be a list of parameters. **kwargs will be a dictionary instead of a list. Also you can mix normal parameters, and args/kwargs.

Check this site for more clarification: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/args-kwargs-python/

Answer 3

what you are doing wrong here is

your function student_info2 can take only 2 positional arguments by your code, so you should call the function like this

student_info2(courses,module)

if you want all 4 to be called in one go, then your function declaration should like this

student_info2(arg1, arg2, arg3, arg4) or student_info2(*args)

Answer 4

You have two parameters as input for the function, but you gave four arguments as input to the function, but if you want to use args and kwargs, you should not use this way. see these site they can help you to undrestand

https://realpython.com/python-kwargs-and-args/

https://www.programiz.com/python-programming/args-and-kwargs

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/args-kwargs-python/