Decorator staticmethod Use Cases

[Devarishi]

A method defined inside a class with the decorator @staticmethod can be executed without creating a class object. However, the same can be done even if the decorator was not used:

className.MethodName()

So, why should we bother about using @staticmethod?

[Yoriz]

If you make an instance of a class that has a staticmethod that takes arguments with no decorator it will expect self as the first argument.

class SomeClass: def somemethod(something): print(something) it_fails = SomeClass() it_fails.somemethod('fail')

Error:
TypeError: somemethod() takes 1 positional argument but 2 were given

Using the @staticmethod stops it expecting self as the first argument

class SomeClass: @staticmethod def somemethod(something): print(something) its_ok = SomeClass() its_ok.somemethod('Does not fail')

Output:
Does not fail

[ichabod801]

To expand on what Yoriz said, there are three basic use cases for class methods in Python:

• You need access to the instance: use a method with no decorator, and the instance will be automatically provided as the first parameter. This is your standard run of the mill method.
  
• You need access to the class: use a method with the classmethod decorator, and the class will be automatically provided s the first parameter. I often use these for alternate constructors.
  
• You don't need access to the instance or the method: use a method with the staticmethod decorator. This is for code you want to keep associated with the code, but isn't necessarily focused on a particular instance or the class itself.
  

[Devarishi]

@Yoriz
@ichabod801

Thanks to both of you for your generous explanations of the concept in question. The example given has helped me understand it better.

Regards,
Dev.