static annotation

The static annotation marks a class member as being static, that is accessible via the class itself and not requiring an instance to access.

Usage

The annotation is applied to the member definition. static members must be declared before the first initializer statement, which means that only classes with constructors can have static members.

class StaticExample {
    shared static String greeting = "Hello";
    shared static void greet(String name) {
        print("``greeting`` name");
    }
    shared new () {}
}

The annotation can be applied to attributes, methods, member types and aliases of toplevel classes.

Description

A static member is one that conceptually belongs to the class itself, and consequently does not need an instance of the class in order to access the member.

Unlike in Java, type parameters of the containing class are in scope of static members:

class GenericStatic<Element> {
    shared static GenericStatic<Element> factory(Element element) {
        // ...
    }
    new create() {
    }
}

See also

• API documentation for static
• Reference for annotations in general