Re: static functions

[Wojciech Komornicki <wnk@piper.hamline.edu>]

>>>>> "Jody" == Jody Hagins <gamecox@magicnet.net> writes:

  Jody> void foo()
  Jody> {
  Jody>   static int i = 1;
  Jody> }

  Jody> isn't guaranteed to be set to 1 until foo() runs.  In fact, for objects,
  Jody> ctors definitely won't run until the first time foo() is encountered.

This is an important point and one I have not seen mentioned in this
thread.  An important difference between statics in C and in C++ is that
in C++, statics which are defined in a local block have dynamic binding but
global storage.  In C, statics must be initialized at compile time. 

The following piece of code will compile with a C++ compiler but will
not compile under C:

    #include <stdio.h>
  
    void
    main()
    {
	for (int i=0; i<3; ++i) {
	    static int j = i;
	    printf("j = %d, i = %d\n", j, i);
	}
    }

The output is
    j = 0, i = 0
    j = 0, i = 1
    j = 0, i = 2

-- 
Wojciech Komornicki                                Dept of Mathematics
wnk@piper.hamline.edu                               Hamline University
http://www.hamline.edu/~wnk/                         St Paul, MN 55104
                                                                   USA