What does this use of static mean?

Asked Mar 12 '18 at 20:11

Active Mar 12 '18 at 20:15

Viewed 43 times

I found a function definition on a Wikipedia page shaped like this:

int foo(int array[static 4])
{
    //irrelevant...
}

While I am familiar with the use of static in affecting external linking (outside of a function; seems unrelated) and providing persistant state for function variables (array is an input here, and static would be before int), making a constant static on an array input looks... weird. It can't force input arrays to be a constant size, since arrays are treated as pointers internally by C. So, what does this DO? And when is a good time to use it?

asked Mar 12 '18 at 20:11

Orion

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well, I didn't know that either, but I googled and found the answer in a few seconds. – Jean-François Fabre Mar 12 '18 at 20:14
I completely missed everything by googling. My google-fu must be lacking. – Orion Mar 12 '18 at 20:20
I looked for "c static in array brackets" FYI. By default, assume that all C constructs you'll encounter are now covered by a stackoverflow question – Jean-François Fabre Mar 12 '18 at 20:20

What does this use of static mean?

0 Answers0