Why can't I initialize my static data member in my constructor

Question

I read the answer in parashift but I need bit details as to why compiler won\'t allow to define static member variable in constructor.

Answer 1

I presume you're referring to using it in an initialization list to a constructor. A static data member is shared among all instances of the class. It can be initialized once (by definition of initialization), so it wouldn't make sense to initialize it for each instance.

You could, however, assign it a value (or mutate the existing value) in the constructor body. Or if the data member is a constant, you can initialize it statically outside of the constructor.