Static Constructors in .NET

What is a static constructor?

As part of my job I conduct technical interviews for my company. Till date I have conducted more 500 interviews and one of the stock question in my interview is can constructors be declared static? Most of the time I get a blunt, no, as the answer. Even some argue that one cannot use the static word along with constructors. A very few who say yes are asked further questions on static constructors like what is the difference between a static constructors and normal constructors? For this also I have got lots of answers like static constructors can be called without creating an object, only static variables can be use etc. Some say static constructors are called only once and when I ask when is that once, People don’t have an answer. So I thought I will try to clear some confusion related to static constructors. To know more read on…

Can constructors be declared Static?

Yes.

What is the difference between a static constructor and normal constructors?

As we know Normal constructors are used to initialize class variables whereas static constructors are used to initialize class level static variables. Static constructors cannot access any other objects other than static as similar to static methods. Similar to static method, static constructors are class level and not instance level. Static constructors do not take any access modifiers, like public, private, protected etc. They also don’t take any arguments. Static constructors are called only once.

Static constructors are called only once, when is that once?

Static constructors are called only once throughout the life time of the program, i.e. when the first instance of the class having static constructors is created or when a static member is accessed/used whichever happens first.

Let me explain further, suppose you have a class called StaticConstructor with a static constructor as shown below.

using System; namespace StaticConstructorDemo { class StaticConstructor { private static string someText; private static int counter; static StaticConstructor() { someText = "Static constructor executed. No of times: "; counter++; } public static void PrintSomeText() { Console.WriteLine(someText + counter.ToString()); } } class MainClass { static void Main(string[] args) { StaticConstructor sc1 = new StaticConstructor(); StaticConstructor sc2 = new StaticConstructor(); StaticConstructor sc3 = new StaticConstructor(); StaticConstructor.PrintSomeText(); } } }

The above code will print “Static constructor executed. No of times: 1”. The reason is static constructor is called only once when the first instance for the class is created i.e. when sc1 is created.

If the above code inside the main method is rewritten like this

class MainClass { static void Main(string[] args) { StaticConstructor.PrintSomeText(); StaticConstructor sc1 = new StaticConstructor(); StaticConstructor sc2 = new StaticConstructor(); StaticConstructor sc3 = new StaticConstructor(); } }

The above code will have the same output as the previous code i.e. “Static constructor executed. No of times: 1”. Static constructor is called before the code inside the static method, PrintSomeText(), is executed. As we know static methods can use static members and if a static constructor is not executed then there is every possibility of the system throwing “object reference not set to an instance” error. So static constructors are called before the first instance of the class is created or any static members are accessed/used.

Hope from the above e.g. gives a clear idea. If for any doubt please do post comments.