# What does the asterisk \* in the PyTorch docs mean?

**URL:** <https://discuss.pytorch.org/t/what-does-the-asterisk-in-the-pytorch-docs-mean/187350>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [August 29, 2023, 3:11pm UTC](https://discuss.pytorch.org/t/what-does-the-asterisk-in-the-pytorch-docs-mean/187350 "2023-08-29T15:11:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
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**Author:** ![niz](https://discuss.pytorch.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/7cd45c/32.png) [@niz](https://discuss.pytorch.org/u/niz)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2023, 3:11pm UTC](https://discuss.pytorch.org/t/what-does-the-asterisk-in-the-pytorch-docs-mean/187350/1 "2023-08-29T15:11:33Z")

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I have been reading the PyTorch documentation and have come across the asterisk being used as a function argument. I know that the asterisk is used in Python to pack/unpack arguments, but I can not find any reference to this case online.

An example of this is the `torch.normal` function. The [documentation](https://pytorch.org/docs/stable/generated/torch.normal.html) gives the following with no explanation of the asterisk:

> torch.normal(_mean_, _std_, \*, _generator=None_, _out=None_ )

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**Author:** ![arunppsg](https://discuss.pytorch.org/user_avatar/discuss.pytorch.org/arunppsg/32/52196_2.png) [@arunppsg](https://discuss.pytorch.org/u/arunppsg)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2023, 4:00pm UTC](https://discuss.pytorch.org/t/what-does-the-asterisk-in-the-pytorch-docs-mean/187350/2 "2023-08-29T16:00:13Z")

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If I am not wrong, the arguments after `*` are keyword only arguments, introduced in [PEP 3102](https://peps.python.org/pep-3102/).