Can I use a string as a named argument in python

Question

I've got a string which will form a timedelta object based on its value. I could write this with if statements, but I know that the string will always match one of the named arguments for the timedelta object. I want to do something similar to below:

td = timedelta("hours"=5)

or:

my_var = "days"
td = timedelta(my_var=5)

What would be the recommended way to do this?

Answer 1

Use the double-asterisk kwargs syntax:

td = timedelta(**{my_var: 5})