What is ** in Python?

In this article, we will learn about the ** operator in Python.

Double Star (**) is an Arithmetic Operator (like +, -, *, **, /, //,%) in Python. Power Operator is another name for it.

What Order/Precedence Do Arithmetic Operators Take?

The rules for both Arithmetic operators and Mathematical operators are same, which are as follows: exponential is run first, followed by multiplication and division, and then addition and subtraction.

Following are the priority orders of arithmetic operators used in decreasing mode −

() >> ** >> * >> / >> // >> % >> + >> -

Uses of Double Star(**) Operator

Using ** As Exponentiation Operator:

It is also known for Using in numeric data to perform Exponetiatial operation

Example

The following program the use of ** operator as power operator in expressions −

# using the double asterisk operator as an exponential operator
x = 2
y = 4

# getting exponential value of x raised to the power y
result_1 = x**y

# printing the value of x raised to the power y
print("result_1: ", result_1)

# getting the resultant value according to the
# Precedence of Arithmetic Operators
result_2 = 4 * (3 ** 2) + 6 * (2 ** 2 - 5)

print("result_2: ", result_2)

Output

On executing, the above program will generate the following output −

result_1:  16
result_2:  30

Using **As Arguments in Functions and Methods:

The double asterisk is also known as **kwargs in a function definition. it is used for passing a variable-length keyword dictionary to a function

We can print **kwargs argument using a small function that is shown in the following example −

Example

The following program shows the use of kwargs in user-defined function −

# creating a function that prints the dictionary of names.
def newfunction(**kwargs):
   # traversing through the key-value pairs if the dictionary
      for key, value in kwargs.items():
   # formatting the key, values of a dictionary
   # using format() and printing it
      print("My favorite {} is {}".format(key, value))
# calling the function by passing the any number of arguments
newfunction(language_1="Python", language_2="Java", language_3="C++")

Output

On executing, the above program will generate the following output −

My favorite language_1 is Python
My favorite language_2 is Java
My favorite language_3 is C++

We can use the keyword argument in our code easily with the help of **kwargs. The best part is we can pass a good number of argument to a function when we utilize **kwargs as a parameter. Creating functions that accept **kwargs is best used when the number of inputs in the argument list is expected to be relatively minimal.

Conclusion

This article taught us about Python's ** operator. We learned about the precedence of operators in the Python compiler, as well as how to utilize the ** operator, which functions like a kwargs and may accept any amount of arguments for a function and is also used to calculate the power.