Can a static function access non-static member variables of class?
The answer here is no. What is the reason? Well, because non-static member variables of a class always belong to an object – meaning that every object has it’s own personal copy of non-static member variables (also known as instance variables). And, static functions have no object to work with since they belong to the class as a whole. Remember that you can call a static function without an object – and for that exact reason a static function can not call instance variables. For example, the following code will not work:
class Stocks
{
int number;
static void picker( )
{
/* this is not allowed because picker is a static
function and can not access an instance variable
*/
number = 6;
...
}
}
Do static functions have a “this” pointer?
No, they do not. Because a static function can be called without using an object, the “this” pointer is not passed into the function. Remember that the “this” pointer is only used when a class is instantiated as an object.