Class Methods and Static Methods

Besides regular instance methods, classes can have two other types of methods that change how self is handled.

1. Class Methods (@classmethod)

• Decorated with @classmethod.
• Takes cls (conventionally) as its first argument, referring to the class itself, not the instance.
• Used for factory methods (alternative constructors) or methods that deal with class-level attributes.

python class Settings: DEFAULT_THEME = 'dark'

@classmethod
def get_default_theme(cls):
    # cls refers to the Settings class
    return cls.DEFAULT_THEME

Accessing via class, not instance

print(Settings.get_default_theme()) # Output: dark

2. Static Methods (@staticmethod)

• Decorated with @staticmethod.
• Takes no required self or cls argument.
• They are utility functions grouped within a class because they logically belong to the class, but they do not interact with either the class attributes or instance attributes.

python class MathUtility: @staticmethod def add_numbers(a, b): return a + b

Called directly via the class name

print(MathUtility.add_numbers(10, 5)) # Output: 15