# How to get the nth value of a function with arbitrary number of arguments

I know that I can define a function of a List and get the nth argument like:

f[x_List]:=x[[1]]+x[[2]]


What if the argument of f is not a list? I.e. how to define an equivalent function for

f[x__Integer]:=?


This is probably extremely basic, but I couldn't figure it out from the Slot documentation.

With f[x__Integer] := ... you can use

{x}[[i]]


to get the ith argument.

Szabolcs's answer (wrapping the sequence x with List and using Part) is the way.

An alternative is to use Indexed

ClearAll[f2]

f2[x__Integer] := Indexed[{x}, 1] + Indexed[{x}, 2]
f2[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]


3

You can also use Slot (#):

ClearAll[f3, f4]

f3[x__Integer] := Slot[1] + Slot[2] &[x]
f3[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]


3

f4[x__Integer] := #1 + #2 &[x]
f4[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]


3

but you can use a pure function directly to define your function:

f5 = #1 + #2 &

• Thanks. Is the pure function method likely to be faster than the Indexed/List methods? – user366202 Oct 14 at 14:24
• @user366202, I am not sure. – kglr Oct 14 at 14:26