Why does *args argument unpacking give a tuple?

Question

In python, it is possible to define a function taking an arbitrary number of positional arguments like so:

def f(*args):
    print(args)
f(1, 2, 3)  # (1, 2,         


        

Answer 1

I don't know if this was the thinking behind it, but that ease of processing (even though instantiate a list with the tuple data is not that hard) would come at possible confusing behavior.

def fce1(*args):
   fce2(args)
   # some more code using args

def fce2(args):
   args.insert(0, 'other_val')

fce1(1, 2, 3)

Could surprise people writing fce1 code not realizing that args they deal with later on are not what the function was called with.

I would also presume immutable types are easier to deal with internally and come with less overhead.