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Some interesting facts about static member functions in C++

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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;
}


References: 
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2005/n1905.pdf



Last Updated : 30 Oct, 2020
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