I've become aware of @staticmethod - next question, are you supposed to use the class name to refer to these methods from within the class?
class C:
@staticmethod
def imstatic():
print("i'm static")
@staticmethod
def anotherstatic():
# Is this the proper python way?
C.imstatic()
@staticmethod
def brokenstatic():
# This doesn't work..
self.imstatic()
Yes, as you don't have any other reference to the class from within a static method. You could make these class methods instead, using the classmethod decorator:
class C:
@staticmethod
def imstatic():
print("i'm static")
@classmethod
def anotherstatic(cls):
cls.imstatic()
A class method does have a reference to the class.
@classmethod is what I'm after. I've now found this thread and will keep reading.If you need to refer to the class within a static method you should probably be using a classmethod instead:
class C:
@staticmethod
def imstatic():
print("i'm static")
@classmethod
def imclass(cls):
cls.imstatic()
In the same way that instance methods are "magically" given a reference to the instance as the first argument, class methods are given a reference to the class. You can call them either from an instance or from the class directly, for example both of the following are valid and have the same behavior:
C().imclass()
C.imclass()
That being said, if you do still want to use a static method your current approach is correct, just refer to the class by name.
self is only used for instance methods.If you always want to call the static method of that specific class, yes, you must specify it by name. If you want to support overriding the static methods, what you want is a classmethod instead: it passes the class on which the method is being called as the first parameter, analogous to self on regular instance methods, so you can call the overridden method. In general I'd suggest using classmethods.
