Default arguments in Python - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Using Default Arguments in Python Functions

📖 Scenario: Imagine you are creating a simple greeting system for a website. Sometimes users provide their name, and sometimes they don't. You want to write a function that can greet users by name if given, or greet them with a friendly default message if no name is provided.

🎯 Goal: Build a Python function called greet that uses a default argument to greet a user by name if given, or greet with a default message if no name is provided.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a function named greet with one parameter called name that has a default value of "Guest".

Inside the function, return a greeting string that says "Hello, {name}! Welcome!" using an f-string.

Call the function greet twice: once without any argument, and once with the argument "Alice".

Print the results of both function calls.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Default arguments help make functions flexible and easier to use in real-world programs where some information might be optional.

💼 Career

Understanding default arguments is important for writing clean, reusable code in software development jobs.

1

Create the greet function with a default argument

Write a function called greet that has one parameter named name with a default value of "Guest".

Python

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the syntax def function_name(parameter=default_value): to create a function with a default argument.

2

Return a greeting message using the name parameter

Inside the greet function, write a return statement that returns the string "Hello, {name}! Welcome!" using an f-string.

Python

def greet(name="Guest"):
    # Your code here

Need a hint?

Use return f"Hello, {name}! Welcome!" to create a formatted string that includes the name variable.

3

Call the greet function with and without an argument

Call the function greet twice: once without any argument and once with the argument "Alice". Store the results in variables greeting1 and greeting2 respectively.

Python

def greet(name="Guest"):
    return f"Hello, {name}! Welcome!"

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Call greet() without arguments and greet("Alice") with the argument, then save the results.

4

Print the greetings

Print the variables greeting1 and greeting2 to display the greeting messages.

Python

def greet(name="Guest"):
    return f"Hello, {name}! Welcome!"

greeting1 = greet()
greeting2 = greet("Alice")

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use print(greeting1) and print(greeting2) to show the greetings.