Functions in Python – Explained with Code Examples (2023)

In any programming language, functions facilitate code reusability. In simple terms, when you want to do something repeatedly, you can define that something as a function and call that function whenever you need to.

In this tutorial, we shall learn about user-defined functions in Python.

When you started coding in Python, you'd have used the built-in print() function in your Hello World! program 😀 and the input() function to read in input from the user.

So long as you know how to use these functions, you don't have to worry about how they've been implemented.

In programming, this is called abstraction. It lets you use functions by calling the function with required arguments, without having to worry about how they actually work.

There's a whole wealth of built-in functions in Python. In this post, we shall see how we can define and use our own functions. Let's get started!

Python Function Syntax

The following snippet shows the general syntax to define a function in Python:

def function_name(parameters): # What the function does goes here return result 

• You need to use the def keyword, give your function a name, followed by a pair of parentheses, and end the line with a colon (:).
• If your function takes arguments, the names of the arguments (parameters) are mentioned inside the opening and closing parentheses.
• Please note that in function definition, the arguments that your function consumes are referred to as parameters.
• When you call the function with specific values for these parameters, they're called arguments or actual parameters. This is because the arguments in the function call are the values used for the function's parameters.
• Then, you begin an indented block. This is the body of the function that describes what your function does.
• There's a return statement that returns the result of the operation on the arguments. The return statement returns control to the point where the function was originally called.

Note that the arguments and the return statement are optional. This means that you could have a function that takes in no arguments, and returns nothing. 😀

Let's now try to understand the above statements using simple examples.

How to Create a Simple Function in Python

Let's now create a simple function in Python that greets the user, as shown below:

def my_func(): print("Hello! Hope you're doing well")

As you can see, the function my_func():

• takes no arguments,
• returns nothing, and
• prints out "Hello! Hope you're doing well" whenever it's called.

Note that the above function definition is inert until the function is triggered or called. Let's go ahead and call the function my_func() and check the output.

my_func()# OutputHello! Hope you're doing well

How to Create a Function with Arguments in Python

Now, we shall modify the function my_func() to include the name and place of the user.

def my_func(name,place): print(f"Hello {name}! Are you from {place}?")

We can now call my_func() by passing in two strings for the name and place of the user, as shown below.

my_func("Jane","Paris")# OutputHello Jane! Are you from Paris?

What happens if you specify the place first and then the name? Let's find out.

my_func("Hawaii","Robert")# OutputHello Hawaii! Are you from Robert?

We get Hello Hawaii! Are you from Robert? – and this doesn't make sense. 🙂What's causing this problem?

The arguments in the function call are positional arguments. This means that the first argument in the function call is used as the value of the first parameter (name) and the second argument in the function call is used as the value of the second parameter ( place )

See the code snippet below. Instead of specifying only the arguments, we've mentioned the parameters and the values they take.

my_func(place="Hawaii",name="Robert")# OutputHello Robert! Are you from Hawaii?

These are called keyword arguments. The order of arguments in the function call does not matter so long as the names of the parameters are correct.

How to Create a Function with Default Arguments in Python

What if we had certain parameters that take a specific value most of the time during the function calls?

Can we not do better than calling the function with the same value for a particular parameter?

Yes we can do better, and that's what default arguments are for! 😀

Let's create a function total_calc() that helps us calculate and print out the total amount to be paid at a restaurant. Given a bill_amount and the percentage of the bill_amount you choose to pay as tip (tip_perc ), this function calculates the total amount that you should pay.

Note how the function definition includes the default value of the parameter tip_perc to be used when the user doesn't specify a tip percentage.

Run the code snippet below.👇🏽 You now have your function ready!

def total_calc(bill_amount,tip_perc=10): total = bill_amount*(1 + 0.01*tip_perc) total = round(total,2) print(f"Please pay ${total}")

Let's now call the function in a few different ways. The code snippet below shows the following:

• When you call the function total_calc with only the bill_amount, by default the tip percentage of 10 is used.
• When you explicitly specify the percentage tip, the tip percentage mentioned in the function call is used.

# specify only bill_amount# default value of tip percentage is used total_calc(150) # Output Please pay $165.0 # specify both bill_amount and a custom tip percentage # the tip percentage specified in the function call is used total_calc(200,15) # Output Please pay $230.0 total_calc(167,7.5) # Output Please pay $179.53 

How to Create a Function that Returns a Value in Python

So far, we've only created functions that may or may not take arguments and do not return anything. Now, let's create a simple function that returns the volume of a cuboid given the length, the width, and the height.

def volume_of_cuboid(length,breadth,height): return length*breadth*height 

Recall that the return keyword returns control to the point where the function was called. The function call is replaced with the return value from the function.

Let's call the function volume_of_cuboid() with the necessary dimension arguments, as shown in the code snippet below. Note how we use the variable volume to capture the value returned from the function.

volume = volume_of_cuboid(5.5,20,6)print(f"Volume of the cuboid is {volume} cubic units")# OutputVolume of the cuboid is 660.0 cubic units

How to Create a Function that Returns Multiple Values in Python

In our earlier example, the function volume_of_cuboid() returned only one value, namely, the volume of a cuboid given its dimensions. Let's see how we can return multiple values from a function.

• To return multiple values from a function, just specify the values to be returned, separated by a comma.
• By default, the function returns the values as a tuple. If there are N return values, we get an N-tuple.

Let's create a simple function cube() that returns the volume and total surface area of a cube, given the length of its side.

def cube(side): volume = side **3 surface_area = 6 * (side**2) return volume, surface_area

To verify that a tuple is returned, let's collect it in a variable returned_values, as shown below:

returned_values = cube(8)print(returned_values)# Output(512, 384)

Now, we shall unpack the tuple and store the values in two different variables.

volume, area = cube(6.5)print(f"Volume of the cube is {volume} cubic units and the total surface area is {area} sq. units")# OutputsVolume of the cube is 274.625 cubic units and the total surface area is 253.5 sq. units

How to Create a Function that Takes a Variable Number of Arguments in Python

Let's start by asking a few questions:

• What if we do not know the exact number of arguments beforehand?
• Can we create functions that work with a variable number of arguments?

The answer is yes! And we'll create such a function right away.

Let's create a simple function my_var_sum() that returns the sum of all numbers passed in as the argument. However, the number of arguments could be potentially different each time we call the function.

Notice how the function definition now has *args instead of just the name of the parameter. In the body of the function, we loop through args until we've used all the arguments. The function my_var_sum returns the sum of all numbers passed in as arguments.

def my_var_sum(*args): sum = 0 for arg in args: sum += arg return sum

Let's now call the function my_var_sum() with a different number of arguments each time and quickly check if the returned answers are correct! 🙂

# Example 1 with 4 numberssum = my_var_sum(99,10,54,23)print(f"The numbers that you have add up to {sum}")# OutputThe numbers that you have add up to 186# Example 2 with 3 numberssum = my_var_sum(9,87,45)print(f"The numbers that you have add up to {sum}")# OutputThe numbers that you have add up to 141# Example 3 with 6 numberssum = my_var_sum(5,21,36,79,45,65)print(f"The numbers that you have add up to {sum}")# OutputThe numbers that you have add up to 251

⌛ A Quick Recap

Let's quickly summarize what we've covered. In this tutorial, we've learned:

• how to define functions,
• how to pass in arguments to a function,
• how to create functions with default and variable number of arguments, and
• how to create a function with return value(s).

Hope you all enjoyed reading this article. Thank you for reading. As always, until next time! 😀