Can I use methods of a class without instantiating this class?

Question

I have a class with several methods and there is no constructor among these methods.

So, I am wondering if it is possible to call a method of a class without a creat

Answer 1

As many have pointed out: This is only possible if the method is static. Maybe some OOP background is in order: A method should always belong to a class. So what is the use of calling a method without an instance of a class? In a perfect OO world there shouldn't be any reason to do that. A lot of use cases that have to do with static methods talk about assigning some kind of identity to your class. While this is perfectly reasonable in a programming world it isn't very convincing when it comes to object oriented design.

As we program in an imperfect world there is often a use case for a "free function" (The way Java or C++ implement sort() for example). As Java has no direct support for free functions classes with only static "methods" are used to express those semantics with the added benefit of the class wrapper providing a "namespace". What you think of this workaround and if you see it as a flaw in language design is IMO a matter of opinion.