# Ternary operators , \*args and \*\*kwargs

Hey guys, welcome back to the Python basics tutorial! Today I'll tell you about ternary operators and args/kwargs.

## Ternary operators

When your assigning a variable based on a condition, you'll use a if/else block. Well, you can fit it into one line too. The structure of a ternary operator in Python is: 

```python
var = value1 if condition else value 2
```

 This may decrease readability though. Let's see an example:

```python
if 3 < 2:
    var = 3
else:
    var = 4
# Can be shortened to:
var = 3 if 3 < 2 else 4
```

There's a significant decrease in size *and* readability.

## \*args and \*\*kwargs

So far if you wanted to make an adder, you would specify two parameters. But if the user wanted to add three numbers? In that case, instead of adding a bunch of named arguments, you would use \*args.

Basically, when you want an indefinite amount of arguments, instead of using positional arguments, you use \*args:

```python
def add(*args):
    result = 0
    for num in args:
        result += num
    
    return result
# OR you can do this:
def add(*args):
    return sum(args)
```

Two things to note here, we only use a star with args when declaring it as a parameter, NOT when using it in the function. And, we also see a new function here: `sum`. It just adds all the elements of the iterable (such as a list) that is given to it.

Remember, \*args only takes arguments as positional ones, not named ones.

{% hint style="info" %}
\*args returns a tuple.
{% endhint %}

\*\*kwargs is a bit different. It only takes named arguments. You use it the same way as \*args. However, \*args returns a tuple, while \*\*kwargs returns a dictionary. So, if the user called your function like `login(username='John', password='harrypotter')`, printing \*\*kwargs would show `{'username': 'John', 'password': 'harrypotter'}` and you can access the username with `kwargs['username']`.&#x20;

{% hint style="info" %}
\*args and \*\*kwargs can be called anything (except for a keyword of course) but it  MUST have a star or two starts respectively in front of it.
{% endhint %}

You've almost finished this course, just a few more stuff, and we'll be done.


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