Getting the keyword arguments actually passed to a Python method

Question

I\'m dreaming of a Python method with explicit keyword args:

def func(a=None, b=None, c=None):
    for arg, val in magic_arg_dict.items():   # Where do I get         


        

Answer 1

I was inspired by lost-theory's decorator goodness, and after playing about with it for a bit came up with this:

def actual_kwargs():
    """
    Decorator that provides the wrapped function with an attribute 'actual_kwargs'
    containing just those keyword arguments actually passed in to the function.
    """
    def decorator(function):
        def inner(*args, **kwargs):
            inner.actual_kwargs = kwargs
            return function(*args, **kwargs)
        return inner
    return decorator


if __name__ == "__main__":

    @actual_kwargs()
    def func(msg, a=None, b=False, c='', d=0):
        print msg
        for arg, val in sorted(func.actual_kwargs.iteritems()):
            print '  %s: %s' % (arg, val)

    func("I'm only passing a", a='a')
    func("Here's b and c", b=True, c='c')
    func("All defaults", a=None, b=False, c='', d=0)
    func("Nothin'")
    try:
        func("Invalid kwarg", e="bogon")
    except TypeError, err:
        print 'Invalid kwarg\n  %s' % err

Which prints this:

I'm only passing a
  a: a
Here's b and c
  b: True
  c: c
All defaults
  a: None
  b: False
  c: 
  d: 0
Nothin'
Invalid kwarg
  func() got an unexpected keyword argument 'e'

I'm happy with this. A more flexible approach is to pass the name of the attribute you want to use to the decorator, instead of hard-coding it to 'actual_kwargs', but this is the simplest approach that illustrates the solution.

Mmm, Python is tasty.