Passing multiple values to a function call (Python)

Question

import re
def strip_tags(value):
    "Return the given HTML with all tags stripped."
    return re.sub(r'<[^>]*?>', '', value)

I have this function to strip HTML tags, but it seems to accept only single value, what do I need to change if I want to pass multiple (not fixed) values at once?

Thanks

Answer 1

Could you use a loop.

for value in values:
    strip_tags(value)

Answer 2

You could pass in value as an array of strings, and then return the array of cleaned values.

Answer 3

import re
def strip_tags(values):
  return map(lambda i: re.sub(r'<[^>]*?>', '', i), values)

Answer 4

here is a function written over the function you have provided. this would take in a list of values and return the corresponding processed list:

import re
def strip_tags_list(values):
     return map(strip_tags, values)

note: this would work on python 2.6 and earleir versions. on python 3.0, you would have to explicitly convert the result of map() to list using list().

Answer 5

Python offers a way to use arbitrary-length argument lists:

def myfunc(*args):
    for argument in args:
        print "myfunc was given", argument

If you put *args in your function definition, all values passed to the function are available as a tuple called args. Note that you can also put additional arguments before *args, like

def my_other_func(name, *args):

so the first argument will be available as name, the rest will be in the tuple args.

It is convention, but not neccessary, to call this parameter args. As long as there's an asterisk in front of it, you can call it whatever you like.

Answer 6

If the values are independent of each other, then don't modify strip_tags, just change how you call it:

values = [some_value, another_value]
values = [strip_tags(v) for v in values]
# values[0] is now the strip_tags version of the old values[0]
# similar to values[0] = strip_tags(values[0]), except for every item

If the values are related, such as being adjacent pieces of the same file, then concatenate them before using strip_tags:

values = [some_value, another_value]
result = strip_tags("".join(values))
# note result is single string