Best practice for default arguments

One of your co-workers (who obviously didn't take this course) has written this function for adding a column to a pandas DataFrame. Unfortunately, they used a mutable variable as a default argument value! Please show them a better way to do this so that they don't get unexpected behavior.

def add_column(values, df=pandas.DataFrame()):
  """Add a column of `values` to a DataFrame `df`.
  The column will be named "col_<n>" where "n" is
  the numerical index of the column.

  Args:
    values (iterable): The values of the new column
    df (DataFrame, optional): The DataFrame to update.
      If no DataFrame is passed, one is created by default.

  Returns:
    DataFrame
  """
  df['col_{}'.format(len(df.columns))] = values
  return df

This exercise is part of the course

Writing Functions in Python

Exercise instructions

Change the default value of df to an immutable value to follow best practices.
Update the code of the function so that a new DataFrame is created if the caller didn't pass one.

Hands-on interactive exercise

Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.

# Use an immutable variable for the default argument
def better_add_column(values, df=____):
  """Add a column of `values` to a DataFrame `df`.
  The column will be named "col_" where "n" is
  the numerical index of the column.

  Args:
    values (iterable): The values of the new column
    df (DataFrame, optional): The DataFrame to update.
      If no DataFrame is passed, one is created by default.

  Returns:
    DataFrame
  """
  # Update the function to create a default DataFrame
  if ____ is ____:
    df = pandas.DataFrame()
  df['col_{}'.format(len(df.columns))] = values
  return df

Edit and Run Code

This exercise is part of the course

Writing Functions in Python

IntermediateSkill Level

4.8+

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The goal of this course is to transform you into a Python expert, and so the first chapter starts off with best practices when writing functions. You'll cover docstrings and why they matter and how to know when you need to turn a chunk of code into a function. You will also learn the details of how Python passes arguments to functions, as well as some common gotchas that can cause debugging headaches when calling functions.

Exercise 1: Docstrings Exercise 2: Crafting a docstring Exercise 3: Retrieving docstrings Exercise 4: Docstrings to the rescue!Exercise 5: DRY and "Do One Thing"Exercise 6: Extract a function Exercise 7: Split up a function Exercise 8: Pass by assignment Exercise 9: Mutable or immutable?Exercise 10: Best practice for default arguments

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