what is wrong with python my python code in *args?

Question

can anyone can help me I was expected that the output is 625 but it shows the output is zero

    def add(*args):
    sum = 0
    for i in args:
        sum *= i
    return sum

print(add(5, 5, 5, 5))

Answer 1

You are setting the sum variable to 0, an in the for loop you are multiplying the sum with i. Any number multiplied with 0 is 0.

Answer 2

>>> def multiply(*args):
...     result = 1
...     for i in args:
...             result *= i
...     return result
...
>>> print(multiply(5,5,5,5))
625

Or rather if you wanted to add

>>> def add(*args):
...     result = 0
...     for i in args:
...             result += i
...     return result
...
>>> print(add(5,5,5,5))
20

Or rather do this pythonic way

>>> mul = lambda x,y: x*y
>>> functools.reduce(mul, [5,5,5,5])
625

Or rather single liner

>>> functools.reduce(lambda x,y : x*y, [5,5,5,5])
625
>>> functools.reduce(lambda x,y : x+y, [5,5,5,5])
20

• Please define your function to have meaningful names.
• Don't use inbuilt names like "sum"
• Have meaningful variable names

Answer 3

First of all, anything multiplied by zero is zero. Therefore if you want to multiply the numbers received, you need to change sum = 0 to sum = 1.

Secondly, don't use sum as a variable or function name, as it is a built-in function in python. It is also misleading as you want your function to multiply the given args (and therefore also don't call the function add). To achieve a readable code, you should have meaningful variable and function names.

Also, your first line isn't indented correctly. You can read about python indentation here.

Putting it all together:

def multiply(*args):
    multiplication = 1
    for i in args:
        multiplication *= i

    return multiplication

print(multiply(5, 5, 5, 5))

Output:

625