[abhirag]

Technically a better definition would be -- "A decorator is a callable object which takes in a callable object and returns a callable object" but I agree that it is much easier wrapping one's head around it when the callable object is a function and decorator just acts as syntactic sugar for higher order functions.

[kissgyorgy]

No, if you read the article, you can learn that a decorator is a callable which can return ANYTHING, not just callables.

[abhirag]

Thanks, I stand corrected :) That makes me wonder , I have not been able to imagine a usecase for it when it doesn't return a callable, the article doesn't help in that regard either. Got some thinking to do I guess.

[Walkman]

the article mention multiple examples, one of being the "registering things" when it returns the same function untouched, just put away the function instance in a list or something to use it later.

[abhirag]

Returning a function would be returning a callable object, which is what I was alluding to. The section under "Decorator Toolbox" contains no suggested usecases for returning a non-callable object, will try and think of something.