Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!apollo!mrst!sdti!wmm
From: wmm@sdti.com (0006-William M. Miller(0000))
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Help!
Keywords: constructors, C++ i/o, extern
Message-ID: <1989Jul7.100843.1783@sdti.com>
Date: 7 Jul 89 10:08:00 GMT
References: <2774@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Reply-To: wmm@sdti.UUCP (0006-William M. Miller)
Organization: Software Development Technologies, Sudbury MA
Lines: 20

In article <2774@ssc-vax.UUCP> dmg@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Geary) writes:
>So now, I can use cout << ... but I cannot have the object myjunk
>external, it has to be in main().
>
>  Can anybody provide an explanation as to why this is happening?

Yes, you've been bitten by the "undefined static constructor order" bug.
"cout" is a static object of class "ostream" which is defined in the
library code somewhere.  "myjunk" (in the nonworking example) is a static
object of class "junk" which is defined in your program.  When static
objects are defined in different files, the order in which their
constructors are invoked is not defined (within a file, it's done in
declaration order).  In your case, "myjunk" is being constructed before
"cout," so saying "cout <<" in the constructor uses an uninitialized
object.
-- 
Non-disclaimer:  My boss and I always see eye-to-eye (every time I look in
the mirror).

...!genrad!mrst!sdti!wmm