Static and Global variables

[Mr.Lnx]

Hello to everyone. I found that a static or global variable will lose its "power" if you assign a value after initialization. Here is an example

#include <stdio.h>
int foo(int x , int y);
//int c=1;

	int main(void)
	{
		int i , j;
		
		for(i=0 , j=5; i<5; i++ , j++)
		printf(" The addition of %d and %d is %d. \n \n" , i , j , foo(i,j));
		
    return 0;
}
int foo(int x , int y)
{
	static int c=1;
	
	c=2;
	
	printf(" This is the call of the function : %d \n " , c++);
	
	return x+y ;
}
//

For instance I have had trials on the above code that is why I have "//" on the third line.

The output of c variable is 2 , 2 , 2 , 2 , 2

not 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6

If I reject the line c=2;

the output of c variable will be 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5.

My question is... what is happen? The assignment c=2 after initialization has the power to "destroy" a static nature of a variable as we can see?

THank you in advance.

[Salem]

> My question is... what is happen? The assignment c=2 after initialization has the power to "destroy" a static nature of a variable as we can see?
Just remove c=2

Having c=2 makes whether the variable is static or not irrelevant.

[hk_mp5kpdw]

The static variable c can be looked at in one sense as a variable with duration similar to a global but with limited scope - just visible within the foo function. The initialization to 1 happens the first time through the function. Thereafter, the assignment of 2 happens every time you enter the function. It should be no surprise that the value is 2 every time you print its value. Even though the function increments the value each time, it is always set back to 2 when entering the function. Why would this be surprising given the behavior you expect with the increment step itself? You expect an increment to increase the value and that is the behavior you see when you comment out the assignment step. With the assignment in place would you suddenly expect nothing to happen to variable? Would you expect the assignment to not affect the value of c at all?