How to initialize a private static const map in C++?

Question

The C++11 standard introduced uniform initialization which makes this much simpler if your compiler supports it:

//myClass.hpp
class myClass {
  private:
    static map<int,int> myMap;
};

//myClass.cpp
map<int,int> myClass::myMap = {
   {1, 2},
   {3, 4},
   {5, 6}
};

See also this section from Professional C++, on unordered_maps.

#include <map>
using namespace std;

struct A{
    static map<int,int> create_map()
        {
          map<int,int> m;
          m[1] = 2;
          m[3] = 4;
          m[5] = 6;
          return m;
        }
    static const map<int,int> myMap;

};

const map<int,int> A:: myMap =  A::create_map();

int main() {
}

If you find boost::assign::map_list_of useful, but can't use it for some reason, you could write your own:

template<class K, class V>
struct map_list_of_type {
  typedef std::map<K, V> Map;
  Map data;
  map_list_of_type(K k, V v) { data[k] = v; }
  map_list_of_type& operator()(K k, V v) { data[k] = v; return *this; }
  operator Map const&() const { return data; }
};
template<class K, class V>
map_list_of_type<K, V> my_map_list_of(K k, V v) {
  return map_list_of_type<K, V>(k, v);
}

int main() {
  std::map<int, char> example = 
    my_map_list_of(1, 'a') (2, 'b') (3, 'c');
  cout << example << '\n';
}

It's useful to know how such things work, especially when they're so short, but in this case I'd use a function:

a.hpp

struct A {
  static map<int, int> const m;
};

a.cpp

namespace {
map<int,int> create_map() {
  map<int, int> m;
  m[1] = 2; // etc.
  return m;
}
}

map<int, int> const A::m = create_map();

Works fine without C++11

class MyClass {
    typedef std::map<std::string, int> MyMap;
    
    struct T {
        const char* Name;
        int Num;
    
        operator MyMap::value_type() const {
            return std::pair<std::string, int>(Name, Num);
        }
    };

    static const T MapPairs[];
    static const MyMap TheMap;
};

const MyClass::T MyClass::MapPairs[] = {
    { "Jan", 1 }, { "Feb", 2 }, { "Mar", 3 }
};

const MyClass::MyMap MyClass::TheMap(MapPairs, MapPairs + 3);