Python: passing flags to functions

Question

For a long time i have been trying to figure out what is the best way to pass flags to python functions. The most straightforward way is something like:

def func         


        

Answer 1

Some Python standard libraries use this:

re.match(pattern, str, re.MULTILINE | re.IGNORECASE)

You can tweak this approach by using *args:

my.func(a, b, c, my.MULTLINE, my.IGNORECASE)

I would really recommend going with flag1=True:

• it is readable
• flag name is checked at compile time (unless **kwargs is used)
• you can use flag=1 and flag=0 instead of True and False to reduce the noise
• you can temporarily change LONG_FLAG_NAME_YOU_DONT_REMEMBER=True to False without retyping the long name when you will need to change back