Advanced Decorators

Advanced decorator patterns include decorators that accept parameters, class decorators, and decorators that preserve function metadata. Decorators with parameters require an extra level of nesting: the outer function accepts parameters and returns a decorator function, which in turn returns the actual wrapper. Class decorators can be used to decorate classes rather than functions, allowing modification of class attributes or methods. The @functools.wraps decorator should be used in decorators to preserve the original function's metadata (name, docstring, etc.). Decorators can also be implemented as classes themselves by defining the __call__ method. Understanding these advanced patterns allows you to create more flexible and powerful decorators that can handle complex scenarios. Decorators are a metaprogramming feature that demonstrates Python's flexibility and power, enabling elegant solutions to problems that would otherwise require repetitive code or complex inheritance hierarchies.