* before iterable inside a print() in Python [duplicate]

Question

I have a list of names and I want to print each element of the list in a different line without a for loop. So, after some research I found this example: print(*names, sep='\n'), witch results in exactly what I want. But what does this * character before the list name means?

Answer 1

The * is used to unpack argument lists when calling a function. In this case it unpacks your list of names.