Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!apple!voder!pyramid!oliveb!peritus!preston
From: preston@peritus.UUCP (Preston Gardner)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: consts in classes
Keywords: const class static ANSI
Message-ID: <155@peritus.UUCP>
Date: 10 Nov 88 01:56:47 GMT
Organization: Peritus International, 10201 Torre, Cupertino, CA.
Lines: 29

Is it possible to define a const inside of a class?  I tried to do it in
various ways, but I could never work out a way to initialize it.
(Const objects without initialization are useless in C++ and cfront
squawks if it sees them.  Cf. ANSI consts, which can be uninitialized,
e.g. a const volatile object that refers to a read-only I/O register.
The ANSI idea of const is different.)

Suppose I want to do this:

	class XType {
	    const int MAX = 20;  // I don't like the C preprocessor define
	    int array[MAX];

	    void XYZ() { // uses array and MAX somehow 
	    };
	};

I can't really get it in C++.  I don't know how to get the definition of
MAX confined within the scope of XType, except to use #define and #undef.


Another question:  Suppose that it is possible to have const objects inside
of a class.  Is there one per object, or one for the whole type?  If there
is one for the whole type then they would be a lot like static class
fields.
-- 
				-- Preston Gardner
				   Peritus International, Inc.
				   ..{pyramid,sun}!oliveb!peritus!preston