What are the uses of class methods?

Can you explain what class methods are and their uses?

Class methods are methods that belong to the class rather than an instance of the class. They can be used for factory methods, modifying class state, or providing utility functions related to the class.

How do class methods differ from instance methods?

Instance methods operate on an instance of the class and can access instance variables, while class methods can only access class variables and are called on the class itself.

Can you give me an example of a class method?

Sure! In Python, you can define a class method using the @classmethod decorator. For example:

class MyClass:
    class_variable = 0

    @classmethod
    def increment_class_variable(cls):
        cls.class_variable += 1

What are some practical applications of class methods?

Class methods are often used for creating factory methods, managing class-level data, and implementing alternate constructors.