What does the * symbol do in the return statement of a Python function?

In a Python function, the * symbol in the return statement is used to return multiple values as a tuple. This is known as tuple packing.

For example, consider the following function that takes two arguments and returns their sum and difference:

def sum_and_difference(a, b):
    return a+b, a-b

In this function, the return statement returns two values a+b and a-b separated by a comma. This means that the values will be returned as a tuple, and the tuple will be unpacked into two separate variables when the function is called:

result = sum_and_difference(5, 3)
print(result)  # Output: (8, 2)


sum, diff = sum_and_difference(5, 3)
print(sum)  # Output: 8
print(diff)  # Output: 2

In the second example, the returned tuple is automatically unpacked into the variables sum and diff.