Illegal start of expression

Question

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!

Aarti · Answer

static variable can only define at class level.

Vulpes · Answer

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#.

Zoran Horvat · Answer

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

Illegal start of expression

Answers (3)