Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ucsd!nosc!cod!mball
From: mball@cod.NOSC.MIL (Michael S. Ball)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: static members
Message-ID: <1356@cod.NOSC.MIL>
Date: 9 Jan 89 03:51:49 GMT
References: <701@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM> <1354@cod.NOSC.MIL> <3381@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Reply-To: mball@cod.nosc.mil.UUCP (Michael S. Ball)
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 19

In article <3381@paris.ics.uci.edu> Doug Schmidt <schmidt@glacier.ics.uci.edu> writes:
>I hope that this working example is not just a fluke, but is rather
>either a part ( or soon to be a part ) of the official definition
>of the language.

Sorry, but it is a fluke.  Cfront may let it through (all programs have
bugs) but many C compilers won't (or at least their linkers won't.)
A variable initialized in more than one file is not legal in C, and
many systems simply bomb on linking, since the compiler can't tell.
The C++ language definite explicitly disallows it.

The syntax for the feature that was proposed at the USENIX workshop
was nothing like this.  I'm not going to speculate further on what
might get into the language.  There are enough rumors and misconceptions
flying about as it is.

-Mike Ball-
TauMetric Corporation
(619)275-6381