In C1_W2_Lab03_Feature_Scaling_and_Learning_Rate_Soln, I wondered what the “,,” on the left of an equality is for? The line of code is: _,_,hist = run_gradient_descent(X_train, y_train, 10, alpha = 9e-7)
In Python, calling a function (in this case you suggest run_gradient_descent()) might be expected to return multiple terms (in this case it seems there are three return values).
The ‘_’ just says, ‘okay’, I don’t care about this return value, I know it is coming back, but just ignore it.
This is easier than other languages where you might have to create a ‘fake’ variable to store the return value that you will never use, or otherwise without that the return on your function will cause ‘errors/problems’.
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I mostly concur with @Nevermnd ’s explanation. However, @rollther note that it is an idiom or programming style that works because the underscore is an allowed character for object names, also called identifiers in Python. a_a is allowed. So is _a_. But just the underscore alone, _ , is also an allowed name. Here, it is part of the assignment that is created by the function return, but you give it the name _ so it is clear you don’t intend to use its value in this scope. Note, however, that you could do. There is nothing special about the underscore as a name other than it isn’t very reader friendly. HTH
From the Python language doc
valid characters for identifiers are … the uppercase and lowercase letters A through Z , the underscore _ and, except for the first character, the digits 0 through 9 .
also
…Elsewhere, _ is a regular identifier. It is often used to name “special” items, but it is not special to Python itself.
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That helps, all clear, thank you very much @Nevermnd & @ai_curious .
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