How to call static methods inside the same class in python

Question

I have two static methods in the same class

class A:
 @staticmethod
 def methodA():
 print 'methodA'
 @staticmethod
 def methodB():
 print 'methodB'

How could I call the methodA inside the methodB? self seems to be unavailable in the static method.

Answer 1

In fact, the self is not available in static methods. If the decoration @classmethod was used instead of @staticmethod the first parameter would be a reference to the class itself (usually named as cls). But despite of all this, inside the static method methodB() you can access the static method methodA() directly through the class name:

@staticmethod
def methodB():
 print 'methodB'
 A.methodA()

Answer 2

As @Ismael Infante says, you can use the @classmethod decorator.

class A:
 @staticmethod
 def methodA():
 print 'methodA'
 @classmethod
 def methodB(cls):
 cls.methodA()

• James Carter: What is the difference/benefit of this vs. using @staticmethod and using the name of the class?
• Jing He: @JamesCarter if you use classmeethod, you get the cls variable, which refers to the containing class itself, so you can use this "cls" to refer to the class and its resources (method, attribute). If you use staticmethod, you can only use the class name to refer to the class, and if you are in a child class and inherit static method from parent class, the class name in the static method still remains the parent class name...

Answer 3

class A:
 @staticmethod
 def methodA():
 print 'methodA'
 @staticmethod
 def methodB():
 print 'methodB'
 __class__.methodA()

• AntonK: +1 for a handy solution because explicitly naming a class when calling a static method within it isn't nice :)