C++ singleton vs. global static object

by

Actually, in C++ preferred way is local static object.

Printer & thePrinter() {
    static Printer printer;
    return printer;
}

This is technically a singleton though, this function can even be a static method of a class. So it guaranties to be constructed before used unlike with global static objects, that can be created in any order, making it possible to fail unconsistently when one global object uses another, quite a common scenario.

What makes it better than common way of doing singletons with creating new instance by calling new is that object destructor will be called at the end of a program. It won’t happen with dynamically allocated singleton.

Another positive side is there’s no way to access singleton before it gets created, even from other static methods or from subclasses. Saves you some debugging time.

More Related Contents:

  1. Why are global and static variables initialized to their default values?
  2. When are static and global variables initialized?
  3. static and extern global variables in C and C++
  4. How to execute a piece of code only once?
  5. C++, static vs. namespace vs. singleton
  6. C++ Singleton design pattern
  7. What is the lifetime of a static variable in a C++ function?
  8. Singleton: How should it be used
  9. Stack, Static, and Heap in C++
  10. Static array vs. dynamic array in C++
  11. Static variables initialisation order
  12. What happens to global and static variables in a shared library when it is dynamically linked?
  13. Initialize static variables in C++ class?
  14. Defining static members in C++
  15. Prevent static initialization order “fiasco”, C++
  16. Can’t set value of static object field (error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol)
  17. Is std::cout guaranteed to be initialized?
  18. efficient thread-safe singleton in C++
  19. How to initialize a static const member in C++?
  20. constexpr static member before/after C++17
  21. Are static fields inherited?
  22. Circular C++ Header Includes
  23. When should I write the keyword ‘static’ before a non-member function?
  24. Accessing static class variables in C++?
  25. static member initialization for specialized template class
  26. Adding static libcurl to Code::Blocks IDE
  27. Member function with static linkage
  28. When and why would you use static with constexpr?
  29. How to ignore false positive memory leaks from _CrtDumpMemoryLeaks?
  30. What are the pros and cons in use of global variables? [closed]

Leave a Comment