in Dart, problems with static method when called from variable

Question

have class Klass with static method fn1

class Klass {
  static String fn1() => 'hello';
}

> Klass.fn1(); //  hello

but when Klass is assigned to a variable, calling the method fn1 fails

var k = Klass;

> k.fn1() // "Unhandled exception: Class '_Type' has no instance method 'fn1'.

don't quite know what's going on here

Answer 1

A simple workaround

class Klass {
  static fn1(String name) {
    return name;
  }
  
  fn1NonStatic(String name) {
    return fn1(name);
  }
}

Klass().fn1NonStatic("test");

Answer 2

I'm not sure what the intent of the code here is, but you might want to use dart:mirrors to reflectively call fn1(). I don't believe you can invoke it by assigning Klass to a variable. Here is how you can do it:

import 'dart:mirrors';

class Klass {
  static String fn1() => 'hello';
}

main() {
  final mirror = reflectClass(Klass);
  print(mirror.invoke(#fn1, []).reflectee); // Prints 'hello'.

}