Python def Keyword (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 27 Dec, 2024

Python def keyword is used to define a function, it is placed before a function name that is provided by the user to create a user-defined function. In Python, a function is a logical unit of code containing a sequence of statements indented under a name given using the “def” keyword. In Python def keyword is the most used keyword.

**Example:

Python `

defining function

def func(): print("Hello")

calling function

func()

Python def Keyword

Let’s explore python def keyword in detail:

Table of Content

Python def Syntax
Passing Function as an Argument
Python def keyword example with *args
Python def keyword example with **kwargs
Python def keyword example with the class

**Python def Syntax

**def function_name:

function definition statements…

**Use of def keyword

In the case of classes, the def keyword is used for defining the methods of a class.
def keyword is also required to define the special member function of a class like __init__().

The possible practical application is that it provides the feature of code reusability rather than writing the piece of code again and again we can define a function and write the code inside the function with the help of the **def keyword. It will be more clear in the illustrated example given below. There can possibly be many applications of def depending upon the use cases.

Example 1: Create function to find the subtraction of two Numbers

In this example, we have created a user-defined function using the def keyword. Function name is **subNumbers() which calculates the differences betweentwo numbers.

Python `

Python3 code to demonstrate

def keyword

function for subtraction of 2 numbers.

def subNumbers(x, y): return (x-y)

main code

a = 90 b = 50

finding subtraction

res = subNumbers(a, b)

print statement

print("subtraction of ", a, " and ", b, " is ", res)

Output

subtraction of 90 and 50 is 40

Example 2: Create function with the first 10 prime numbers

In this example, we have created a user-defined function using the def keyword. The program defines a function called **fun() using the def keyword. The function takes a single parameter n, which specifies the number of prime numbers to be printed.

Python `

Python program to print first 10 prime numbers

A function name prime is defined

using def

def fun(n): x = 2 count = 0 while count < n: for d in range(2, int(x ** 0.5) + 1): # check divisibility only up to sqrt(x) if x % d == 0: break # if divisible, it's not prime, so break the loop else: print(x) # prime number count += 1 x += 1

Driver Code

n = 10

fun(n)

Output

2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29

Passing Function as an Argument

In Python, we can pass functions as arguments to other functions. We can pass a function by simply referencing its name without parentheses. The passed function can then be called inside the receiving function.

**Example:

Python `

A function that takes another function as an argument

def fun(func, arg): return func(arg)

def square(x): return x ** 2

Calling fun and passing square function as an argument

res = fun(square, 5) print(res)

**Explanation:

This function takes two parameters: func (a function) and x (a value). It applies the function func to the value x and returns the result.
We call fun and pass the square function (without parentheses) and the number 5. The square function is applied to 5, and the result is printed.

Python def keyword example with *args

In Python, *args is used to pass a variable number of arguments to a function. The * allows a function to accept any number of positional arguments. This is useful when we are not sure how many arguments will be passed to the function.

**Example:

Python `

def fun(*args): for arg in args: print(arg)

Calling the function with multiple arguments

fun(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Python def keyword example with **kwargs

In Python, **kwargs is used to pass a variable number of keyword arguments to a function. The ** syntax collects the keyword arguments into a dictionary, where the keys are the argument names and the values are the corresponding argument values. This allows the function to accept any number of named (keyword) arguments.

Python `

def fun(**kwargs): for k, val in kwargs.items(): print(f"{k}: {val}")

Calling the function with keyword arguments

fun(name="Alice", age=30, city="New York")

Output

name: Alice age: 30 city: New York

**Explanation:

**kwargs collects the keyword arguments passed to example_function into a dictionary kwargs.
Inside the function, you can iterate over the dictionary and print the key-value pairs.

Python def keyword example with the class

In Python, the def keyword is used to define functions and it can also be used to define methods inside a class. A method is a function that is associated with an object and is called using the instance of the class.

When using def inside a class, we can define methods that can access and modify the attributes of the class and its instances.

Python `

class Person: # Constructor to initialize the person's name and age def init(self, name, age): self.name = name # Set the name attribute self.age = age # Set the age attribute

# Method to print a greeting message
def greet(self):
    print(f"Name - {self.name} and Age - {self.age}.")

Create an instance of the Person class

p1 = Person("Alice", 30)

Call the greet method to display the greeting message

p1.greet()

Output

Name - Alice and Age - 30.