Swift - Class and Static Methods

Both the static and class methods can only be accessed with class as they are not Instance methods.

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class Methods {

    func publicMethod() {

        print("Methods - publicMethod")

    }

    class func classMethod() {

         print("Methods - classMthod")

    }

    static func staticMethod() {

        print("Methods - staticMethod")

    }

}

let methods = Methods()  

methods.publicMethod()  // accessed using instance

Methods.staticMethod() // accessed using class

Methods.classMethod()  // accessed using class

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The only difference between static and class methods is, Class methods can be overridden but not static methods. Overriding static methods will result in a compile time error.

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class SubClassMethods: Methods {

    override func publicMethod() {

        print("SubClassMethods - publicMethod")

    }

    override class func classMethod() {

        print("SubClassMethods - classMethod")

    }

    override static func staticMethod() {   // Can not override static method

        print("Methods - staticMethod")

    }

}

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Note: Structures can have static methods, They can not have class methods.

Hope this post is useful. Feel free to comment incase of any queries.