How can I find the number of arguments of a Python function?

Answer #1:

The previously accepted answer has been deprecated as of Python 3.0. Instead of using inspect.getargspec you should now opt for the Signature class which superseded it.

Creating a Signature for the function is easy via the signature function:

from inspect import signature

def someMethod(self, arg1, kwarg1=None):
    pass

sig = signature(someMethod)

Now, you can either view its parameters quickly by string it:

str(sig)  # returns: '(self, arg1, kwarg1=None)'

or you can also get a mapping of attribute names to parameter objects via sig.parameters.

params = sig.parameters 
print(params['kwarg1']) # prints: kwarg1=20

Additionally, you can call len on sig.parameters to also see the number of arguments this function requires:

print(len(params))  # 3

Each entry in the params mapping is actually a Parameter object that has further attributes making your life easier. For example, grabbing a parameter and viewing its default value is now easily performed with:

kwarg1 = params['kwarg1']
kwarg1.default # returns: None

similarly for the rest of the objects contained in parameters.

As for Python 2.x users, while inspect.getargspec isn’t deprecated, the language will soon be :-). The Signature class isn’t available in the 2.x series and won’t be. So you still need to work with inspect.getargspec.

As for transitioning between Python 2 and 3, if you have code that relies on the interface of getargspec in Python 2 and switching to signature in 3 is too difficult, you do have the valuable option of using inspect.getfullargspec. It offers a similar interface to getargspec (a single callable argument) in order to grab the arguments of a function while also handling some additional cases that getargspec doesn’t:

from inspect import getfullargspec

def someMethod(self, arg1, kwarg1=None):
    pass

args = getfullargspec(someMethod)

As with getargspec, getfullargspec returns a NamedTuple which contains the arguments.

print(args)
FullArgSpec(args=['self', 'arg1', 'kwarg1'], varargs=None, varkw=None, defaults=(None,), kwonlyargs=[], kwonlydefaults=None, annotations={})

Answer #2:

import inspect
inspect.getargspec(someMethod)

see the inspect module

Answer #3:

someMethod.func_code.co_argcount

or, if the current function name is undetermined:

import sys

sys._getframe().func_code.co_argcount

Answer #4:

inspect.getargspec()

Get the names and default values of a function’s arguments. A tuple of four things is returned: (args, varargs, varkw, defaults). args is a list of the argument names (it may contain nested lists). varargs and varkw are the names of the * and ** arguments or None. defaults is a tuple of default argument values or None if there are no default arguments; if this tuple has n elements, they correspond to the last n elements listed in args.

Changed in version 2.6: Returns a named tuple ArgSpec(args, varargs, keywords, defaults).

See can-you-list-the-keyword-arguments-a-python-function-receives.

Answer #5:

func.__code__.co_argcount gives you number of any arguments BEFORE *args

func.__kwdefaults__ gives you a dict of the keyword arguments AFTER *args

func.__code__.co_kwonlyargcount is equal to len(func.__kwdefaults__)

func.__defaults__ gives you the values of optional arguments that appear before *args

Here is the simple illustration:

>>> def a(b, c, d, e, f=1, g=3, h=None, *i, j=2, k=3, **L):
    pass

>>> a.__code__.co_argcount
7
>>> a.__defaults__
(1, 3, None)
>>> len(a.__defaults__)
3
>>> 
>>> 
>>> a.__kwdefaults__
{'j': 2, 'k': 3}
>>> len(a.__kwdefaults__)
2
>>> a.__code__.co_kwonlyargcount
2

Answer #6:

Adding to the above, I’ve also seen that the most of the times help() function really helps

For eg, it gives all the details about the arguments it takes.

help(<method>)

gives the below

method(self, **kwargs) method of apiclient.discovery.Resource instance
Retrieves a report which is a collection of properties / statistics for a specific customer.

Args:
  date: string, Represents the date in yyyy-mm-dd format for which the data is to be fetched. (required)
  pageToken: string, Token to specify next page.
  parameters: string, Represents the application name, parameter name pairs to fetch in csv as app_name1:param_name1, app_name2:param_name2.

Returns:
  An object of the form:

    { # JSON template for a collection of usage reports.
    "nextPageToken": "A String", # Token for retrieving the next page
    "kind": "admin#reports#usageReports", # Th

Answer #7:

Good news for folks who want to do this in a portable way between Python 2 and Python 3.6+: use inspect.getfullargspec() method. It works in both Python 2.x and 3.6+

As Jim Fasarakis Hilliard and others have pointed out, it used to be like this:
1. In Python 2.x: use inspect.getargspec()
2. In Python 3.x: use signature, as getargspec() and getfullargspec() were deprecated.

However, starting Python 3.6 (by popular demand?), things have changed towards better:

From the Python 3 documentation page:

inspect.getfullargspec(func)

Changed in version 3.6: This method was previously documented as deprecated in favour of signature() in Python 3.5, but that decision has been reversed in order to restore a clearly supported standard interface for single-source Python 2/3 code migrating away from the legacy getargspec() API.

Answer #8:

inspect.getargspec() to meet your needs

from inspect import getargspec

def func(a, b):
    pass
print len(getargspec(func).args)