Static variables in ruby, like in C functions

Question

Is there any such thing as static variables in Ruby that would behave like they do in C functions?

Here\'s a quick example of what I mean. It prints \"6\\n7\\n\" to the

Answer 1

There is no syntactical equivalent to C's static variables in Ruby, and I've never seen something like that in languages with similar level of abstraction, like Javascript, Python, Elixir, etc.

What I understand about this C code is that the first time the function is called the compiler initializes the variable with the initial value. Subsequent calls will just get the current value of the varible.

This is how I would translate the same logic in ruby terms:

def test()
  @a ||= 5 # If not set, set it. We need to use an instance variable to persist the variable across calls.
  @a += 1 # sum 1 and return it's value
end

def main()
  puts test
  puts test
  0
end

This works outside a class too.