How do you declare arrays in a c++ header?

Question

This is related to some other questions, such as: this, and some of my other questions.

In this question, and others, we see we can declare and initialise string arrays in one nice step, for example:

const char* const list[] = {"zip", "zam", "bam"}; //from other question 

This can be done in the implementation of a function with no bother, or in the body of a .cpp file, outside any scope.

What I want to do is to have an array like this as as member of a class I am using, something like this:

class DataProvider : public SomethingElse {     const char* const mStringData[] = {"Name1", "Name2", "Name3", ... "NameX"};  public:     DataProvider();     ~DataProvider();      char* GetData()     {         int index = GetCurrentIndex(); //work out the index based on some other data         return mStringData[index]; //error checking and what have you omitted     }  }; 

But, the compiler complains and I can't seem to work out why. Is it possible to declare and initialise an array like this in one step in a class definition? Are there alternatives that are better?

Answer 1

Use the keyword static and external initialization to make the array a static member of the class:

In the header file:

class DataProvider : public SomethingElse {     static const char* const mStringData[];  public:     DataProvider();     ~DataProvider();      const char* const GetData()     {         int index = GetCurrentIndex(); //work out the index based on some other data         return mStringData[index]; //error checking and what have you omitted     }  }; 

In the .cpp file:

const char* const DataProvider::mStringData[] = {"Name1", "Name2", "Name3", ... "NameX"};