Working with multiple return values

In the simplest terms...
I have a function that returns 3 values

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1. >>> def sendnum():
2. ...     return 1,2,3

and a function that takes 3 arguments.

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1. >>> def receive(a=4,b=5,c=6):
2. ...     print a,b,c

They of course do their individual jobs

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1. >>> sendnum()
2. (1, 2, 3)
3. >>> receive(11,12,13)
4. 11 12 13

Is there any way to code this so that the sending function doesn't send it as a list, or that the receiving function sees it as 3 different values? So instead of

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1. >>> receive(sendnum())
2. (1, 2, 3) 5 6

I would get

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1.  >>> receive(sendnum())
2. 1 2 3

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1. >>> receive(*sendnum())
2. 1 2 3
3. >>> 

Fantastic, what is terminology for this, so I can study up on it? I have tried it in an system which embeds python to access CAD functions, so I have no control over the supplied objects. This works perfect.

Thanks

Fantastic, what is terminology for this, so I can study up on it? I have tried it in an system which embeds python to access CAD functions, so I have no control over the supplied objects. This works perfect.

Thanks

7. More argument matching examples. Here is the sort of interaction you should get, along with comments that explain the matching that goes on:

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1. def f1(a, b): print a, b             # normal args
2.  
3. def f2(a, *b): print a, b            # positional varargs
4.  
5.  f3(a, **b): print a, b           # keyword varargs
6.  
7.  f4(a, *b, **c): print a, b, c    # mixed modes
8.  
9.  f5(a, b=2, c=3): print a, b, c   # defaults
10.  
11.  f6(a, b=2, *c): print a, b, c    # defaults + positional varargs
12. % python
13. >>> f1(1, 2)                  # matched by position (order matters)
14. 1 2
15. >>> f1(b=2, a=1)              # matched by name (order doesn't matter)
16. 1 2
17. >>> f2(1, 2, 3)               # extra positionals collected in a tuple
18. 1 (2, 3)
19. >>> f3(1, x=2, y=3)           # extra keywords collected in a dictionary
20. 1 {'x': 2, 'y': 3}
21. >>> f4(1, 2, 3, x=2, y=3)     # extra of both kinds
22. 1 (2, 3) {'x': 2, 'y': 3}