Question

The following code doesn’t build.

struct some_struct {
    some_struct() {
      ... do something here to specify size of v; how ??
    }
    enum {
       ZERO,
       ONE,
       TWO
    };

    static std::vector<std::string> v(TWO);
};

Appreciate any ideas.. nothing seems to suggest this is illegal use.

Typo: Fixed the vector syntax and correction: I have only tested on 2005/2008, not 2010. The error message for those who asked:

error C2061: syntax error : identifier 'TWO'

Further edit:

It looks like the compiler thinks v is a function that returns type std::vector<std::string>; all of this is inside a struct (I have now further corrected my post to clarify this some more). Perhaps I need to leave out the size argument which it confuses with a type and declare the size somewhere in the constructor? I meant for this vector to be a static data member of the struct. How do I get the compiler to understand this?

NOTE: On Linux I tested it on a standalone code resembling what I had up originally (without the struct)… so maybe it wouldn’t compile on Linux with this correction. So I removed the comment that it built OK on Linux. Apologies.

Answer 1

You can’t initialize the class member in the class declaration. You need to instantiate it outside:

#include <vector>
#include <string>

struct some_struct {
    some_struct() {
    }
    enum {
       ZERO,
       ONE,
       TWO
    };

    static std::vector<std::string> v;
};

std::vector<std::string>
some_struct::v = std::vector<std::string>(TWO);

int main() {}