Mastering ChatGPT’s Function Call API: The Smart Way and the… Not-So-Smart Way (in Python)
Function calling in ChatGPT is like a gift to developers — one that comes with some “assembly required.” It has some impressive capabilities, but also a few traps waiting to catch the unwary.
Yet, once you get the hang of it, it feels less like coding and more like commanding an intelligent agent. In fact, you could argue it’s ushering in a new era for AI application architecture.
Here’s the gist: when using the function calling API, you tell ChatGPT which functions are available. It responds by telling you which function it needs to execute, along with the arguments. You then give it those arguments, and this delightful back-and-forth continues until ChatGPT can provide a final answer.
The easy way to handle this? Simply package up the functions you want to offer, make an API call, and let a handy library like pygptcalls take care of the back-and-forth for you. No sweat.
Let’s see it in action. Imagine you want to give ChatGPT the ability to interact with your filesystem. You’d need to offer functions to list, read, and write files. Simple, right?
