Pythonic solution for conditional arguments passing

Question

I have a function with two optional parameters:

def func(a=0, b=10):     return a+b 

Somewhere else in my code I am doing some conditional argument passing like:

if a and b:    return func(a, b) elif a:    return func(a) elif b:    return func(b=b) else:    return func() 

Is there anyway to simplify code in this pattern?

EDIT:

Let's assume that I'm not allowed to implement default parameter logic inside func.

I may have several functions like func: func1, func2 and func3 would all contain the

a = a or 0 b = b or 10 

statements.

But I'm invoking these series of functions to eliminate duplication. (using a decorator)

Answer 1

If you don't want to change anything in func then the sensible option would be passing a dict of arguments to the function:

>>> def func(a=0,b=10): ...  return a+b ... >>> args = {'a':15,'b':15} >>> func(**args) 30 >>> args={'a':15} >>> func(**args) 25 >>> args={'b':6} >>> func(**args) 6 >>> args = {} >>> func(**args) 10 

or just:

>>>func(**{'a':7}) 17 

Answer 2

Going by the now-deleted comments to the question that the check is meant to be for the variables being None rather than being falsey, change func so that it handles the arguments being None:

def func(a=None, b=None):    if a is None:       a = 0    if b is None:       b = 10 

And then just call func(a, b) every time.