Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nih-csl!lhc!mimsy!brillig.cs.umd.edu!wilson
From: wilson@brillig.cs.umd.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Are global class objects special?
Message-ID: <26729@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 26 Sep 90 20:33:45 GMT
Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu
Reply-To: wilson@brillig.cs.umd.edu ()
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 24

Am I right that there is no way to vary a parameter to 
a constructor for a class object having global scope 
without recompilation?   I would like to vary the seed 
to an object which is a random number generator used by 
several different objects (which is why it is global).  
Currently the seed must be hard coded since my tests show 
that the constructor is invoked before main is executed.  
I am using g++, the GNU C++ compiler.

For that matter, is there anything special about having a global 
class object?  I have code which runs properly when class objects
are declared within main, but when I move them up above main
the code crashes from within the constructor for the first object.
Actually the code crashes after trying to free up heap space used 
for constructing a char*  within the constructor.

I'm just generally puzzled about execution of code before main
in invoked.  Apparently, I can't count on all necessary 
system initializations being performed before my constructors
are called.

Does anyone have any insights to this issue?

Anne Wilson