static and extern global variables in C and C++

Global variables are not extern nor static by default on C and C++.
When you declare a variable as static, you are restricting it to the current source file. If you declare it as extern, you are saying that the variable exists, but are defined somewhere else, and if you don’t have it defined elsewhere (without the extern keyword) you will get a link error (symbol not found).

Your code will break when you have more source files including that header, on link time you will have multiple references to varGlobal. If you declare it as static, then it will work with multiple sources (I mean, it will compile and link), but each source will have its own varGlobal.

What you can do in C++, that you can’t in C, is to declare the variable as const on the header, like this:

const int varGlobal = 7;

And include in multiple sources, without breaking things at link time. The idea is to replace the old C style #define for constants.

If you need a global variable visible on multiple sources and not const, declare it as extern on the header, and then define it, this time without the extern keyword, on a source file:

Header included by multiple files:

extern int varGlobal;

In one of your source files:

int varGlobal = 7;

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