Some interesting facts about static member functions in C++
1) static member functions do not have this pointer.
For example following program fails in compilation with error “`this’ is unavailable for static member functions “
CPP
#include<iostream> class Test { static Test * fun() { return this ; // compiler error } }; int main() { getchar (); return 0; } |
2) A static member function cannot be virtual (See this G-Fact)
3) Member function declarations with the same name and the name parameter-type-list cannot be overloaded if any of them is a static member function declaration.
For example, following program fails in compilation with error “‘void Test::fun()’ and `static void Test::fun()’ cannot be overloaded “
CPP
#include<iostream> class Test { static void fun() {} void fun() {} // compiler error }; int main() { getchar (); return 0; } |
4) A static member function can not be declared const, volatile, or const volatile.
For example, following program fails in compilation with error “static member function `static void Test::fun()’ cannot have `const’ method qualifier ”
CPP
#include<iostream> class Test { static void fun() const { // compiler error return ; } }; int main() { getchar (); return 0; } |
Please write comments if you find anything incorrect, or you want to share more information about the topic discussed above.
References:
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2005/n1905.pdf
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