Pass same keyword argument to a function twice

Question

This is two questions, and I'd be happy with either being answered (unless one method is preferred to another).

I have a function, say

def my_func(a, b, c, d = None):
    print(a)
    print(f"I like {b}")
    print(f"I am {c}")
    if d:
        print(d)

I have a dictionary of keywords my_dict = {'a': 'Hello', 'b': 'Dogs', 'c': 'Happy', 'd': 10} which are always passed as inputs to the function my_func(**kwargs).

My questions are:

1. If I want to input a different value, say a='Goodbye', is there a way I can input the same argument twice overriding the first entry with the second instance of it?
2. Alternatively, is there something comparable to my_dict.update({'a': 'Hello'}) that won't change the values in the dictionary permanently, but will let me pass in a different value for a specific keyword?

I know I can create a new dictionary and pass that in, but I think it would be cleaner if I could do it without needing to do this (though feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!).

Edit: I'm using Python 3.8.

Answer 1

On Python 3.5 and up, you can unpack my_dict into a new dict and override the 'a' entry:

my_func(**{**my_dict, 'a': 'Goodbye'})

On Python 3.9 and up, you can use the | operator to create a new dict by merging entries from two dicts. Values for duplicated keys will be taken from the second dict:

my_func(**my_dict | {'a': 'Goodbye'})