Is @staticmethod decorator needed for declaring a Static Method in Python?

Question

I am curious about why we need the @staticmethod decorator to declare method as static.

I was reading about static methods in Python, and I came to know that a static method can be callable without instantiating its class.

So I tried the two examples below, but both do the same:

class StatMethod:
  def stat():
    print("without Decorator")

class StatMethod_with_decorator:
  @staticmethod
  def stat():
    print("With Decorator")

If I call the stat() method on the class directly, both print/show the values below:

>> StatMethod.stat()
without Decorator
>> StatMethod_with_decorator.stat()
With Decorator

Answer 1

You need the decorator if you intend to try to call the @staticmethod from the instance of the class instead of of the class directly

class Foo():
    def bar(x):
        return x + 5

>>> f = Foo()
>>> f.bar(4)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#7>", line 1, in <module>
    f.bar(4)
TypeError: bar() takes 1 positional argument but 2 were given

Now if I declare @staticmethod the self argument isn't passed implicitly as the first argument

class Foo():
    @staticmethod
    def bar(x):
        return x + 5

>>> f = Foo()
>>> f.bar(4)
9