Specifies
static storage for variables, objects and arrays; they are allocated at program startup and deallocated upon exit. Objects are constructed once when they are defined, and destructed upon program exit.
When declaring static arrays, only
numeric literals,
Constants or
Enumerations may be used as subscript range values. Static variable-length arrays must be declared empty (no subscript range list) and resized using
ReDim before used.
In both iterative and recursive blocks, like looping
control flow statements or procedures, static variables, objects and arrays local to the block are guaranteed to occupy the same storage across all instantiations of the block. For example, procedures that call themselves - either directly or indirectly - share the same instances of their local static variables.
A static variable may only be initialised with a constant value: its starting value is set at the start of the program before any code is run, and so it cannot depend on any variables or functions in it.
When used with module-level and member procedure declarations,
Static specifies
static storage for all local variables, objects and arrays.
At module-level variable declaration only, the modifier
Shared may be used with the keyword
Static to make module-level static variables visible inside procedures.
When used with UDT, each
Static member variable needs an explicit definition as well as a declaration. The declaration inside the UDT is the prototype that is visible to every module seeing the UDT declaration (like with methods). The definition - which must be done outside the type declaration code, and appear only once in a single module - allocates static space for - and optionally initializes - the static variable.
A
Static member variable is visible throughout the entire program (inside any procedure) even if the modifier
Shared is not specified in the definition (
Static and
Shared are useless in the definition). So,
Static member variables can be called directly anywhere in code, or on objects of type
typename.
Static (Member) is also used in member procedure declarations to specify static member procedures.