c++ forward declaration of a static class member

Question

I have a class:

class M {
public:
    static std::string t[];
};

with an initialization that comes later. I want to use the M::t later in a different class (header file):

class Use {
public:
    void f() { std::cout << M::t[0] << std::endl; }
};

Is there any way to achieve this without including the whole class M for the header file of the Use? I understand that forward declarations do not allow accessing class members, however this beauty is a static one, so it shouldn't be a huge problem for the compiler..

Answer 1

No, you can't. You can either include the header in the header, or separate the implementation Use::f in an implementation file and include M's header there.

Answer 2

There are no partial classes like in C#, where you can define a class in several files.
Since you are making it a public static member, why don't you create a namespace and embed it there?

namespace myns{

std::string t[];

}

You can access it from anywhere then, just like you would have done with a public static class member.