What is a classmethod for?

[Frank Tobin]

On 10 Jun 2002, Kragen Sitaker wrote:

> That's so you don't have to write this?
> 
> class HostPortAddress(tuple): pass
> def HostPortAddress_from_str(s): 
>     return HostPortAddress(s.split(':', 1))

Well, it makes sense to throw all the 'knowledge' of how to stringify and 
de-stringify a HostPortAddress into one class.

> Are there times when it's more compelling?

Another example would be anytime where you have something that is close to
a staticmethod which is a helper to the instance methods ,but needs some
information that only the class can provide.

-- 
Frank Tobin			http://www.neverending.org/~ftobin/