In object-oriented programming, the static keyword holds a special significance, altering the behavior of attributes and methods. There are sometimes a scenarios where we need certain data to be shared among all objects of a class rather than being replicated for each instance. This is where static data members come into play.

The syntax of the static members

Creating a static member of a class is straightforward. You simply need to prepend the declaration with the static keyword.

In the above example, static_attibute and static_method() are declared as a static data members of the class Example. Unlike regular data members, static data members are associated with the class itself rather than individual objects. This means that all instances of Example share the same static members.

Note

To access a static data member, we use the scope resolution operator (::). But before this we have to initialize.

Initialization is crucial for static data members and it must be done outside the class unless it is also uses const keyword.

Benefits of using static members

The use of static data members and static member functions offers several benefits:

• Resource Sharing: Static data members facilitate the sharing of data among all instances of a class, reducing memory consumption and promoting efficient resource utilization.
• Utility Functions: Static member functions can be used to implement utility functions or perform operations that are not dependent on object state.
• Class-wide Operations: Static member functions provide a means to perform class-wide operations or manipulate class-level data without the need for object instantiation.

Note

Try to experiment with a Example class and its static members