In Python, I'd like to be able to create a function that behaves both as a class function and an instance method, but with the ability to change behaviors. The use case for this is for a set of serializable objects and types. As an example:

>>> class Thing(object):
    #...
>>> Thing.to_json()
'A'
>>> Thing().to_json()
'B'

I know that given the definition of classmethod() in funcobject.c in the Python source, this looks like it'd be simple with a C module. Is there a way to do this from within python?

Thanks!