You can pass a default value to get() for keys that are not in the dictionary: self.val2 = kwargs.get(‘val2’,”default value”) However, if you plan on using a particular argument with a particular default value, why not use named arguments in the first place? def __init__(self, val2=”default value”, **kwargs):
You can use **kwargs to let your functions take an arbitrary number of keyword arguments (“kwargs” means “keyword arguments”): >>> def print_keyword_args(**kwargs): … # kwargs is a dict of the keyword args passed to the function … for key, value in kwargs.iteritems(): … print “%s = %s” % (key, value) … >>> print_keyword_args(first_name=”John”, last_name=”Doe”) first_name … Read more
The syntax is the * and **. The names *args and **kwargs are only by convention but there’s no hard requirement to use them. You would use *args when you’re not sure how many arguments might be passed to your function, i.e. it allows you pass an arbitrary number of arguments to your function. For … Read more