Class Decorators

The term "class decorator" gets used for two completely different things in Python, and the confusion bites people who only learn one. The first is a class used as a decorator: a class whose instances behave like functions, wrapping another callable so it can carry state across calls. The second is a decorator applied to a class: a function that takes a class object, modifies or registers it, and hands it back. Both share the @ syntax. Neither replaces the other. This lesson covers both, in that order, with e-commerce examples that show when each one earns its place.