Static Data Member

[vb.bajpai]

referring to this - http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infoce...ef/cplr038.htm

"You must define the static member outside of the class declaration, in namespace scope." - namespace scope?

I tried to define a static member declared in a class in main() , and it gave me error, i also read somewhere that static members should always be defined in global scope.how does this all relate?

[hk_mp5kpdw]

class foo
{
public:
    static int bar;
};

int foo::bar;

int main()
{
    ...
}

[vb.bajpai]

class foo
{
public:
    static int bar;
};

int foo::bar;

int main()
{
    ...
}

what if i place static int bar in private ?

[Daved]

>> what if i place static int bar in private ?
Exact same thing.

>> namespace scope?
Do you know what a namespace is? If not, you have to understand them first. If yes, then you know that you can declare your class inside a namespace. The quote is saying that the static member must be defined inside the scope as the class. If you define it inside the main() function it won't work, that is a deifferent scope than the class is in.

If you aren't using namespaces, then the proper scope to define the static member is the global scope.