How to initialize private static members in C++?

Question

What is the best way to initialize a private, static data member in C++? I tried this in my header file, but it gives me weird linker errors:

class foo
{
           


        

Answer 1

With a Microsoft compiler[1], static variables that are not int-like can also be defined in a header file, but outside of the class declaration, using the Microsoft specific __declspec(selectany).

class A
{
    static B b;
}

__declspec(selectany) A::b;

Note that I'm not saying this is good, I just say it can be done.

[1] These days, more compilers than MSC support __declspec(selectany) - at least gcc and clang. Maybe even more.