What does the Double Star operator mean in Python?

In Python, the double star ** operator is used in different contexts with different meanings:

When calling a function, you can use the ** operator to unpack a dictionary of keyword arguments:

def function(a, b, c): print(a, b, c) args = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3} function(**args)

Output:

1 2 3

Here, **args unpacks the dictionary args into keyword arguments for the function.

When defining a function, you can use **kwargs (or any name after the **) to collect additional keyword arguments into a dictionary:

def function(**kwargs): for key, value in kwargs.items(): print(key, value) function(a=1, b=2, c=3)

Output:

a 1 b 2 c 3

Here, **kwargs in the function definition collects all extra keyword arguments into a dictionary.

In Python 3.5 and later, you can use the ** operator to merge dictionaries:

dict1 = {'a': 1, 'b': 2} dict2 = {'b': 3, 'c': 4} merged_dict = {**dict1, **dict2} print(merged_dict) # Outputs: {'a': 1, 'b': 3, 'c': 4}

Here, if there are overlapping keys, the value from the rightmost dictionary (dict2 in this case) will overwrite the value from the left.

In a mathematical context, the ** operator is used for exponentiation:

result = 2**3 # 2 raised to the power of 3 print(result) # Outputs: 8

In this usage, 2**3 means 23, which equals 8.

These are the primary uses of the ** operator in Python. Remember that its meaning can vary depending on the context in which it's used.