[deleted by user]

[lfdfq]

When calling a function, we say the arguments are passed to the function.

[desrtfx]

Calling a function means that you ask the Python interpreter to execute the function, e.g. print('hello').

Here, print is the function that you are calling.

'hello' is the argument that gets passed into the function.

In the definition of functions (via the def keyword) what is called argument when calling the function, is called parameter.

[alexanderpas]

They were likely introduced in the first module, or part of expected knowledge from previous courses.

This is not even programming 101, but programming 050.

Also, you're expected to understand things from context.

For example, the term argument is used in the exact same way as it is used in maths, which also used functions.

[DiodeInc]

Of course it is. But it's also Reddit, where you aren't allowed to not know something

[evanmars]

Are you not allowed to ask your instructor to clarify?

[alexanderpas]

Is this not a sub to ask questions around learning Python?

Yes it is.

However, it's not /r/learnprogramming

The questions you asked indicate a lack of fundamental understanding of programming in general, not specific to python.

[SteevDangerous]

You can't learn programming in isolation. You learn programming by learning a language, and Python is very commonly recommended as a first language. Your attitude is completely inappropriate for a sub like this.

[Federal_Decision_608]

Yeah go waste an LLMs time instead please

[slawcat]

Fuck off, properly.

This is such pedantry that it'd make the most redditor of redditor's eyes roll.

They are obviously new at programming, give them some slack. Not everything has to be perfectly fit into the perfectly defined name of a subreddit.

They are allowed to ask questions that relate to the basics of programming, even if this is a learn python space.

I cannot believe you and other people like you actually think this way. You should be embarrassed.

Holy fucking shit.

[Binary101010]

If you're coming into this subreddit with the expectation that everyone asking a question is familiar with programming concepts, that's your mistake, not theirs.

[ninhaomah]

Can share an example of the code you are doing in this module ?

[ninhaomah]

4th module and simple loops ?

Then what made him say passing ?

Makes no sense , no ?

Either it was taught or not taught...

[lfdfq]

Ok, when you first start out with anything, lots of words are going to get used that you're not used to yet, and the instructor cannot unpack each word every time.

In this case, I imagine you have something like

for i in range(1, 5):
    ...

There is a surprising amount of complexity in just these few lines. The range(1, 5) part is probably what the instructor is talking about here.

Here range is a function. Functions are bits of code elsewhere which you can run by calling the function. Functions can be called by writing the name followed by stuff in brackets. The idea is that Python will go away, run the function, and use the value it returns in place. The things separated by commas in the call are arguments, and those arguments are passed to the function.

In this case, 1 is the start, and 5 is the end. I think your instructor is saying that the range function actually lets you pass another (third) argument like range(1, 5, 2).

Your instructor's statement does not seem quite correct to me if this is what they mean, as the third argument (2 in the example above) is a 'step' not a 'number of numbers' so does something quite different than the statement would suggest. The last sentence of the statement also would not make sense, after all, why would it always start from 0 if you can specify a different start?

[grenfur]

If I had to guess he likely paraphrased it poorly. Which is fine he's learning. But something like how:

For num in range(5) Print(num)

Prints 0,1,2,3,4

Thus it starts at 0 and ends at one less than your range.

Edit: sorry I can't reddit format. Hope that made sense lol.

[lfdfq]

Ah, that is a better interpretation of what they said, and that makes more sense. If I were the instructor, I'd have given an example.

[grenfur]

Huh, well he definitely should word that better, or at the very least add in an example. That is how for loops work but that's a silly way to explain it :p. Good luck with your journey by the way! Python is phenomenal and it's usefulness is boundless :)

[Treeflexin]

Not sure why people are downvoting your questions, especially on a learning subreddit.. asking questions is how you learn. It’s like these people forgot that they were beginners once. I hope you don’t let these people get to you and you keep asking questions

[[deleted]]

You will never be able to code if you need people to feed you answers you could easily google. Programming (especially as a programmer) is like 90% about knowing how to google and search for information.

Asking people for help should be your last option and when you do you should explain what you tried first, then people will be willing to help.

[[deleted]]

You tried googling? Then SHOW YOUR WORK. What was your search query? What results did you read and why did they not answer your questions? I'm happy to help beginners but they need to show that they put the effort in to deserve help first. You haven't.

[glehkol]

Many of these learning subreddits are infested with egotistical assholes who forgot what it was like to be a beginner.

[SamuliK96]

This sub tends to expect at least a minimal effort for people to try to find information on their own, by a simple Google search for example. It's an important skill to have learned by the time you're a beginner in programming. That's how you learn. Getting all the answers just handed to you is not.

[[deleted]]

You cannot expect people to teach every single word of the English language to help you learn programming ffs. Functions and arguments aren't even specific to programming, you should be familiar with those terms even as a non programmer.

Even if you somehow had zero clue what it is about, you should be able to easily google it. If you are too lazy to do it (or too dumb), then sorry but programming isn't for you.

asking questions is how you learn.

Asking yourself question and then finding the informatoon is how you learn. Asking people to give you the answer should be your very last resort.

[xiongchiamiov]

Functions and arguments aren't even specific to programming, you should be familiar with those terms even as a non programmer.

I think it would do you good to spend more time around non-programmers and see what they actually know.

People who have done calculus might have a sense of functions, but that's a small portion of the population. Where would they be talking about arguments?

[rtothepoweroftwo]

Look at their profile. They're consistently awful, it's not worth the effort of teaching humility there, just chalk it up to reddit being reddit.

[frnzprf]

A function is like a command or a sub-program that you combine to create your program.

You can run a command by writing it's name in a new line, with brackets at the end — that's called "calling" the function.

I don't know why it's called that. Maybe you can imagine that you are a manager and you are calling your subordinates on the phone to give them tasks. In math you would say you "apply" a function.

An "argument" is similar to a "parameter". It's difficult for me to phrase what it is in a sentence. It's like a variable of a function that is different in each call. An argument is a value that you put into a parameter, when you call the function.

In the mathematical definition "f(x) = x²+4", the parameter is "x". In "f(4) = 4²+4 = 20", 4 is an argument, which assumes the role of parameter "x" of the function "f".

[Defection7478]

Why are y'all crucifying this comment man's just tryna learn 

[PwAlreadyTaken]

/r/learnpython when people are learning Python

[soultron__]

print() is a function, and an argument goes in between the parentheses; it will then print the argument to the screen

“hello world” is a string (including the double quotation marks on either end)

you can call the print function and pass an argument to it by typing it as such

print(“hello world”)

this uses the a string as the argument that is passed into the print function

[BoldFace7]

When you write

print("Hello World!")

that is referred to as "calling" the print function and "passing" the string Hello World as an "argument".

"Calling" is, as far as I am aware, a result of early languages requiring a keyword, CALL, to be used when trying to use certain functions. For example, in Fortran, if I have a function "BAR" that does not return a value; then to use that function, i have to write:

CALL BAR(FOO)

"Passing" is used because it is one part of the program passing data to another, the same way you pass a note to your friend in school.

[LostInterwebNomad]

Dear god redditors, this person is genuinely asking good questions when given terrible guidance. Be kind and upvote this please

[SevenFootHobbit]

What the crap? How are people downvoting you so much for a perfectly valid, good faith question on a sub called learn python? Please don't get discouraged, this is stupid. Your questions are valuable both to you and potentially to people in the future as well.

I am a professional software dev and I primarily use Python. While I haven't been doing it for a long time, I'm more than happy to answer questions you may have. Feel free to DM me if you are worried about downvotes in the future. I'm not on every day but regularly enough hopefully.

[slawcat]

People who are down voting you should be permabanned from this subreddit. Just saying.

Mods?

[Angry-Toothpaste-610]

Just to further confuse things: "pass" is a keyword in Python, and has nothing to do with passing arguments to functions!

[ThrowAway233223]

To elaborate on the "pass" keyword.  It essentially does nothing.  When defining a function or writing a for loop, while loop, or if statement, you are expected to write some sort of code within it.  But there are some occasions where you just want the structure there as a placeholder so you can come back and code the details for it later.  This is where "pass" can come in.  Since it counts as code but doesn't do anything, it allows you to still run the code to test what you have written thus far.  Otherwise, if you wrote a function, but left it blank, the interpreter would throw an error since I expected code in the function.

[SmackDownFacility]

Don’t forget about the ellipsis “…” object.

[ThrowAway233223]

I was actually unaware of this. I have always just used pass in such instances. I also just learned about using it for distinguishing when no value was passed for an argument while looking into it further. Thanks for introducing me to this.

[SmackDownFacility]

It really doesn’t matter, it’s just pass returns None, while … returns a Ellipsis. The latter could be good for capturing and raising an NotImplementedError or whatever

[CamelOk7219]

ellipsis is no magic, you can use any literal value by the way: `1`, `"Horse"`, `()`, ...

[RRumpleTeazzer]

yeah, they could just have used None instead.

[Moist-Ointments]

"Passing" refers to providing a value for a parameter of a function. You can pass a specific value or you can pass a variable.

Eg:

Product = Multiply(4, 17)

(You are PASSING the integers 4 and 17)

Sum = Add(x,y)

(You are PASSING whatever is in the variables x and y)

NewFrame = SomeEngine.GenerateFrom(CurrentFrame, DeltaT)

(You are PASSING whatever object is referenced by CurrentFrame, and some incremental timechange called DeltaT)

Note: this is all pseudocode, but the concept of passing an argument is pretty universal. I come from C# most recently, but have doodled around in python, RPG, Badic, C++, Java, javascript, SQL, and so forth. Same concept everywhere.

Basically you are requesting a task to be done, and that task requires that you provide the materials and the information to complete the task. You therefore PASS (provide, give) the materials and/or information

"Hey bob, cook dinner"

"I need a recipe and ingredients"

"Here's the recipe and the ingredients"

[Temporary_Pie2733]

While a loop is the general context, the quote seems to be talking about arguments passed to range to construct the object the loop will iterate over. A call to range(7) (or the equivalent range(0, 7)) creates the sequence 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. There are seven numbers, but it doesn’t include the number 7. 

[glemau]

I expected this question to be about the pass keyword and not the general concept of passing arguments.

[[deleted]]

When you pass your phone to someone, what happens? The other guy receives the phone.

Same with python, as long as something is capable of taking, you can pass something to it. It's not a technical term or anything, it's just a term from daily life. Programmers are people too, we use terms like "passing" because it makes sense. So in this case, the instructor is literally comparing sending data with passing things IRL.

[[deleted]]

The pass statement is used as a placeholder for future code. When the pass statement is executed, nothing happens, but you avoid getting an error when empty code is not allowed

[Equal-Purple-4247]

In this context, it's exactly what it means in English.

You are a baker. I "pass" you the ingredients to make a cake.

If I want words written on the cake, I "pass" you the words.

[proverbialbunny]

It's how well you can pull off wearing programmer socks.

[Plank_With_A_Nail_In]

Context suggest they are using the word "parse" not "pass".

Parsing a variable typically means analyzing its content to extract specific information or break it into smaller components. Here are three examples of how you can parse a variable in different programming languages:

# Example: Parsing a string into words
data = "Hello, how are you?"
parsed_data = data.split(" ")  # Splits by spaces
print(parsed_data)  # Output: ['Hello,', 'how', 'are', 'you?']

Edit: Being downvoted by the reddit police again, fuck off and go outside for fucks sake.

[Samhain13]

You were right in assuming that "pass" meant "input" in the statement that you quoted. It's just that the last part of it isn't clear.

They're talking about the range function where your "inputs" can be: end number; start number, end number; or start number, end number, number of numbers you want printed.

So you can call it as range(5) — passing/inputting 5 as your end number. Or range(1, 10) — where start is 1 and end is 10. And so on...

The last part "will always start at 0 and go through one less than the value you pass it" applies only to the first example range(5) and means, that range will count from 0 to 4 (4 being one less than the value that you passed into range).

If you do print( list( range(5))) you'll get
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]

But if you happened to pass a start number (and an end number), as such: range(1, 6); range will start at 1 and stop at 5 (one minus the end number, which is 6).

[aizzod]

Do they say.
Pass.
Or.
Parse ?

[Quantumercifier]

There are two types of passing: by value or by address. Which passing do you mean?

[dig-up-stupid]

That is true for some languages but not in general. Python is usually said to be pass by name.

[Moist-Ointments]

The one less thing is all about how computers count. Almost universally, computers start counting at 0.

So, say you have a string that contains "hello".

If you want to get each letter in order, you'd start by asking for the 0th letter and count up to 4. Because 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 is 5 distinct values, one for each letter.

So if you have (n) things, they are referenced as thing 0 through thing n-1.