classmethod vs staticmethod

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Accepted Answer

A classmethod is bound to the class, not an instance - it gets cls automatically and can access or modify class-level state. A staticmethod is just a regular function that lives in the class namespace for organizational reasons; Python passes nothing extra to it. Use classmethods for alternative constructors (Date.from_string(...)) and staticmethods for utility functions that logically belong to the class but don't need any class or instance data.