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From: johnb@srchtec.UUCP (John Baldwin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Simple C++ Question
Summary: What does static class do?
Message-ID: <155@srchtec.UUCP>
Date: 25 Jul 90 21:01:20 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: search technology, inc.
Lines: 29

Short question here:
   I am working on a large project involving C++.  There are no "C++ gurus"
here (a few of us, myself included, are very familiar with C, however).
There are some code fragments we're trying to understand, one of which
includes a class of storage-type "static".  The declaration looks like this:

   static class  Widget  {
       .
       .   // data and member functions here
       .
   };

We have checked Lippman's book, the Stroustrup text, and Hansen's "answer
book" to no avail.  Please forgive me asking this on the net, but what does
it do??

My guess is that you get a class which you can inherit from, but there's only
one instance of it, and all the derived classes can access this instance.

Please respond by email only, to save net bandwidth.  I'll post the answer
if anyone's curious.  Sorry if this is obvious folklore-type knowledge; we
need to come up to speed very quickly.

Thanks!
-- 
John T. Baldwin                      |  johnb@srchtec.uucp
Search Technology, Inc.              |  johnb%srchtec.uucp@mathcs.emory.edu
standard disclaimer:                 |  ...uunet!samsung!emory!stiatl!srchtec..
opinions and mistakes purely my own. |  ...mailrus!gatech!stiatl!srchtec...