Normal arguments vs. keyword arguments

Question

How are \"keyword arguments\" different from regular arguments? Can\'t all arguments be passed as name=value instead of using positional syntax?

Answer 1

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fact that you can mix positional and keyword arguments to do sneaky things like this using *args and **kwargs (from this site):

def test_var_kwargs(farg, **kwargs):
    print "formal arg:", farg
    for key in kwargs:
        print "another keyword arg: %s: %s" % (key, kwargs[key])

This allows you to use arbitrary keyword arguments that may have keys you don't want to define upfront.