How to Define a function in Python in just 3 Steps

In today’s Article we will Define a function in Pyt h on, discuss about the purpose of return keyword, and the functions of Default and Variable Length Arguments.

A function is a block of organized, reusable code that is used to perform a single, related action. Functions provide better modularity for your application and a high degree of code reusing.

Just like Python’s built-in functions such as print(), input() and more, you can build your own Python functions

Define a function in Python:

We use the Def keyword to Define a Function in Python

def():
   print("A Simple Function")

Any input arguments should be placed within these parentheses, this is called Parameters

def(x):
   print(f"A Simple Function that inputs {x}")

Syntax to Define a function in Python:

def add(x,y):
   print(x+y)

Here the add() function takes in 2 Parameters (integers)

It prints out the sum of x and y

Return:

Notice that we used print(), which is basically a built-in function inside your function

This is not quite ideal

That’s why we have the return keyword, and it returns a value for output. A return statement with no arguments is the same as return None.

def add(x,y):
   return x+y
add(5,7)

This is the same code as the previous, but using the return keyword

Default arguments:

A default argument is an argument that assumes a default value if a value is not provided in the function call for that argument.

def add(x=0, y=0):
   return x+y
add()

Here we’ve not defined any parameter for the function, and we set the default value to 0

Variable-length arguments:

In our previous program we took 2 numbers and returned their sum, what if we enter three or more values? We get an error

Then is there a way to find the sum of variable number of integers? Yes, there is, by using Variable-length arguments.

You may need to process a function for more arguments than you specified while defining the function. These arguments are called variable-length arguments and are not named in the function definition, unlike required and default arguments.

def add(x, *args):
     for i in args:
             x+=i
     return x

add(1,2,3,4,5)  
add(10,10,10)
add(2,4)

15
30
6

Examples where we Define a function in Python:

Paragraph Length Checking Function:

def lencheck(para):
   if len(para) <300 and len(para) >50:
      return "Right Length"
   elif len(para)<50:
      return "Too Less"
   elif len(para)>300:
      return "That's alot"

lencheck("This paragraph contains very less content")

Too Less

Is it an Exclamation Function:

def isitexclamation(msg):
   if '!' in msg:
      return True
   else:
      return False

isitexclamation("Geekalgo is Cool!")

True

Conclusion:

In today’s post we’ve discussed how to Define a function in Python, purpose of return, about Default and Variable Length Arguments. If you are on your way to become a Pythonista, you might find our site really helpful. Hit this link for more python related posts
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