Illegal start of expression

Andrew

15y2.4kJava

I got this error: "illegal start of expression" while defining static variable. I noticed that it works few minutes ago.

Code:

class Demo{

    Demo() {
        static int a = 7;
    }
}

Thanks!

3 Replies

Know the answer? Post it — somebody with the same question will find it here.

Aarti15y ago
static variable can only define at class level.
0
Vulpes15y ago
The question was actually asked in relation to Java rather than C# though static local variables are not supported in that language either.

If you want a local variable to maintain its state between calls to its containing method, then you have to declare it as a field (i.e. at class level) rather than as a local variable.

This means that there's nothing to stop other methods from accessing or changing its value but that's just a minor annoyance, IMO, for a C++ programmer migrating to Java or C#.
0
Zoran Horvat15y ago
C# doesn't allow static declarations inside methods (as C++ did allow). This is basically because static member would have to be loaded when method is invoked, which is a tricky thing. Rather than that, C# insists on declaring static members at class level, so that they can be loaded (and initialized) on class load, which is precisely determined in time and thread safe.

Zoran
0