Question

I was wondering how static worked. Here is an example:

void count()
{
    static int x = 1;
    cout << "Static: " << x << endl;
    x++;

    return;
}

int main()
{
    //Static variable test
    cout << endl;
    count();
    count();
}

This program gives an output of “1 and 2”. But I was wondering when the function “count” is called for the second time, why isn’t the “static int x = 1” line executed?

Answer 1

This is a language rule; the initialization of a static variable is only performed once.

Note that this is different from

static int x;
x = 1;

which would reset x to 1 in every call.