there were no excess positional arguments).

If any keyword argument does not correspond to a formal parameter
name, a "TypeError" exception is raised, unless a formal parameter
using the syntax "**identifier" is present; in this case, that formal
parameter receives a dictionary containing the excess keyword
arguments (using the keywords as keys and the argument values as
corresponding values), or a (new) empty dictionary if there were no
excess keyword arguments.

If the syntax "*expression" appears in the function call, "expression"
must evaluate to an *iterable*.  Elements from these iterables are
treated as if they were additional positional arguments.  For the call
"f(x1, x2, *y, x3, x4)", if *y* evaluates to a sequence *y1*, …, *yM*,
this is equivalent to a call with M+4 positional arguments *x1*, *x2*,
*y1*, …, *yM*, *x3*, *x4*.

A consequence of this is that although the "*expression" syntax may
appear *after* explicit keyword arguments, it is processed *before*
the keyword arguments (and any "**expression" arguments – see below).
So:

   >>> def f(a, b):
   ...     print(a, b)
   ...
   >>> f(b=1, *(2,))
   2 1
   >>> f(a=1, *(2,))
   Traceback (most recent call last):
     File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
   TypeError: f() got multiple values for keyword argument 'a'
   >>> f(1, *(2,))
   1 2

It is unusual for both keyword arguments and the "*expression" syntax
to be used in the same call, so in practice this confusion does not
often arise.

If the syntax "**expression" appears in the function call,
"expression" must evaluate to a *mapping*, the contents of which are
treated as additional keyword arguments. If a parameter matching a key
has already been given a value (by an explicit keyword argument, or
from another unpacking), a "TypeError" exception is raised.

When "**expression" is used, each key in this mapping must be a
string. Each value from the mapping is assigned to the first formal
parameter eligible for keyword assignment whose name is equal to the
key. A key need not be a Python identifier (e.g. ""max-temp °F"" is
acceptable, although it will not match any formal parameter that could
be declared). If there is no match to a formal parameter the key-value
pair is collected by the "**" parameter, if there is one, or if there
is not, a "TypeError" exception is raised.

Formal parameters using the syntax "*identifier" or "**identifier"
cannot be used as positional argument slots or as keyword argument
names.

Changed in version 3.5: Function calls accept any number of "*" and
"**" unpackings, positional arguments may follow iterable unpackings
("*"), and keyword arguments may follow dictionary unpackings ("**").
Originally proposed by **PEP 448**.

A call always returns some value, possibly "None", unless it raises an
exception.  How this value is computed depends on the type of the
callable object.

If it is—

a user-defined function:
   The code block for the function is executed, passing it the
   argument list.  The first thing the code block will do is bind the
   formal parameters to the arguments; this is described in section
   Function definitions.  When the code block executes a "return"
   statement, this specifies the return value of the function call.
   If execution reaches the end of the code block without executing a
   "return" statement, the return value is "None".

a built-in function or method:
   The result is up to the interpreter; see Built-in Functions for the
   descriptions of built-in functions and methods.

a class object:
   A new instance of that class is returned.

a class instance method:
   The corresponding user-defined function is called, with an argument
   list that is one longer than the argument list of the call: the
   instance becomes the first argument.

a class instance:
   The class must define a "__call__()" method; the effect is then the
   same as if that method was called.
Ú