python __call__ magic method is class method or object method?

Question

I'm recently working on design patterns in python and I saw this in the singleton design pattern:

# THIS WILL BE USED AS METACLASS FOR OTHER CLASSES
class MetaSingleton(type):
    _instance = {}

    def __call__(cls, *args, **kwargs):
        if cls not in cls._instance:
            cls._instance[cls] = super().__call__(*args, **kwargs)
        return cls._instance[cls]   

And also I understood that __call__ is class method. But I remembered that I use __call__ with self like this:

class myclass:
   def __call__(self):
      print('__call__ is called.')
x = myclass()
x()
# __call__ is called.

(These two codes are not related to each other, they are just examples.)

So __call__ method is class method or object method?

And also another question: If it's class method, In which situations I can use it as a classmethod?

Answer 1

It's an instance method. If it were a class method, it would be decorated with classmethod . The name of the first argument is irrelevant. It can be banana if you want

_{— from juanpa.arrivillaga 's comment}

it's an instance method, but instances of metaclasses are classes.

_{— from Barmar 's comment}