What is the Python equivalent of static variables inside a function?

Question

What is the idiomatic Python equivalent of this C/C++ code?

void foo()
{
    static int counter = 0;
    counter++;
          


        

Answer 1

Building on Daniel's answer (additions):

class Foo(object): 
    counter = 0  

def __call__(self, inc_value=0):
    Foo.counter += inc_value
    return Foo.counter

foo = Foo()

def use_foo(x,y):
    if(x==5):
        foo(2)
    elif(y==7):
        foo(3)
    if(foo() == 10):
        print("yello")


use_foo(5,1)
use_foo(5,1)
use_foo(1,7)
use_foo(1,7)
use_foo(1,1)

The reason why I wanted to add this part is , static variables are used not only for incrementing by some value, but also check if the static var is equal to some value, as a real life example.

The static variable is still protected and used only within the scope of the function use_foo()

In this example, call to foo() functions exactly as(with respect to the corresponding c++ equivalent) :

stat_c +=9; // in c++
foo(9)  #python equiv

if(stat_c==10){ //do something}  // c++

if(foo() == 10):      # python equiv
  #add code here      # python equiv       

Output :
yello
yello

if class Foo is defined restrictively as a singleton class, that would be ideal. This would make it more pythonic.