Passing a dictionary to a function in python as keyword parameters

I'd like to call a function in python using a dictionary.

Here is some pseudo-code:

d = dict(param='test')

def f(param):
    print param

f(d)

This prints {'param': 'test'} but I'd like it to just print test.

I'd like it to work similarly for more parameters:

d = dict(p1=1, p2=2)
def f2(p1,p2):
    print p1, p2
f2(d)

Is this possible?

From stackoverflow

• Here ya go - works just any other iterable:

  d = {'param' : 'test'}
  
  def f(dictionary):
      for key in dictionary:
          print key
  
  f(d)
  

• Figured it out for myself in the end. It is simple, I was just missing the ** operator to unpack the dictionary

  So my example becomes:

  d = dict(p1=1, p2=2)
  def f2(p1,p2):
      print p1, p2
  f2(**d)
  

  Aaron Digulla : S.Lott: This is not possible.

  Javier : if you'd want this to help others, you should rephrase your question: the problem wasn't passing a dictionary, what you wanted was turning a dict into keyword parameters

  Matthew Trevor : It's worth noting that you can also unpack lists to positional arguments: f2(*[1,2])

  mipadi : "dereference": the usual term, in this Python context, is "unpack". :)

• In python, this is called "unpacking", and you can find a bit about it in the tutorial. The documentation of it sucks, I agree, especially because of how fantasically useful it is.

• You could easily iterate through all items of a given dictionary like this;

  dictionary = {0: 'zero', 1: 'one', 2 : 'two', 3 : 'three', 4 : 'four', 5: 'five'}
  
  for counter in range (0, len(dictionary)):
            dictionary[counter]
  

  Hope this helps.. XD