Convert function arguments to str

Question

I wrote a function and call it as below:

from lib import base_frequency

base_frequency("AB610939-AB610950.gb", "genbank")
#This calls the function that uses a BioPython code.

How could I pass the function arguments as below?

base_frequency(AB610939-AB610950.gb, genbank)

Note that quotes are missing. Should I do this? Is there a recommended nomenclature in Python when function argument is sting?

I thought this required me to convert filename and record format to a string inside the function. That is:

AB610939-AB610950.gb to "AB610939-AB610950.gb"
genbank to "genbank"

I have tried str(AB610939-AB610950.gb) inside the function but it did not do the job.

Answer 1

There is no way to do this without quotes, or else Python will interpret it as an expression. Take the first argument for example,

AB610939-AB610950.gb

Python will read this as a subtraction operation between two variables, AB610939 and the gb property of AB610950, not a sequence of characters. The only way to stop this is to surround it in quotation marks to make it string literal.