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Should a member function that returns a static member variable also be static?
For instance:
struct T {
static int i;
static int getNumber() {
return i;
}
};
Should getNumber be static or not?
301
A static member function can only access static data member, other static member functions and any other functions from outside the class. Static member functions have a class scope and they do not have access to the this pointer of the class.
A static member function can access only the names of static members, enumerators, and nested types of the class in which it is declared. Suppose a static member function f() is a member of class X . The static member function f() cannot access the nonstatic members X or the nonstatic members of a base class of X .
It's not compulsory. you can write a member function that returns a static variable. You cannot go the other way around (write a static function which returns an instance variable).
A static variable declaration is only executed once, the first time the function is executed. A static variable is initialized only once (since this is part of the declaration process) and will be initialized to 0 unless the programmer designates otherwise.
Usually, yes.
If the variable doesn't have any per-instance state, then what possible per-instance logic could the function perform on it before returning it?
159
It's not compulsory. you can write a member function that returns a static variable. You cannot go the other way around (write a static function which returns an instance variable).
As an example of a case where you may want to return a static member, imagine a circumstance where the class holds a state variable and based on the state you would return one of the static values. Not that this is good design, but its not completely inconceivable
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