Question

Can i access a method from a instance of the class? Example:

class myClass
{
       private static int n = 0;

       public static myClass()
       { n = 5;}

       public static void Afis()
       { 
              Console.WriteLine(n);
       }

}

and in the void Main:

static void Main()
{
          myClass m = new myClass();
          m.Afis();
}

This gives me: cannon be accessed with an instance referece. Is it because i declared the function static? If that is so when should I use static and when not because in c++ if i declare something with static it just initialize once. Is that the case with c#?

Answer 1

You need to use the class name rather than your variable name to access the static method.

myClass.Afis();

I’ve attached a link to the Static Classes and Static Class Members programming guide as you’ve asked when you should use them and not use them.

A little exert from the programming guide:

A static class can be used as a convenient container for sets of
methods that just operate on input parameters and do not have to get
or set any internal instance fields. For example, in the .NET
Framework Class Library, the static System.Math class contains methods
that perform mathematical operations, without any requirement to store
or retrieve data that is unique to a particular instance of the Math
class.