Question

I would like to have a static char array member initialized in terms of other static char array members – but the initialization is such that code is necessary. Is this possible?

class fred {
    static char *a;
    static char *b;
    static char c[4];
}

Now a and b will have fixed values, but I want to construct c in terms of them.
EG:

fred::a = "1234"
fred::b = "ab"    
strcpy(c, b);
strncat(c, a, 1);

However I can’t see anyway to initialize c, other than to make a class for the purpose which is just a char[4], with a constructor that references fred::a and fred::b, and then replace c in fred with an instance of that class – which is awkward when referencing the c char array.

Is there a better way?

Answer 1

Edit: Originally, I had wilma as a friend of fred, and a static instance of wilma doing the initialization. I have changed the example to have dino declared within fred since the OP said he thought that would be cleaner.

You can create a static instance of a class inside fred whose job is to initialize c for you.

class fred {
    static char *a;
    static char *b;
    static char c[4];
    static struct dino { dino (); } dino_flintstone;
};

char *fred::a;
char *fred::b;
char fred::c[4];
fred::dino fred::dino_flintstone;

fred::dino::dino () {
    fred::a = "1234";
    fred::b = "ab";
    strcpy(fred::c, fred::b);
    strncat(fred::c, fred::a, 1);
}