#295 – When Is a Static Constructor Called?
April 8, 2011 Leave a comment
You cannot dictate when a static constructor will be called and you can’t call it directly.
More specifically, a static constructor will be called just before you do one of the following:
- Create an instance of the type
- Access any static data in the type
- Start executing Main method (in the same class as the static constructor)
If we have the following implementation in the Dog class:
public Dog(string name) { Console.WriteLine("Dog constructor"); Name = name; } public static string Motto = "Wag all the time"; static Dog() { Console.WriteLine("Static Dog constructor"); }
And we create a Dog instance:
Console.WriteLine("Here 1"); Dog d1 = new Dog("Kirby"); Console.WriteLine("Here 2");
We get this output (static constructor called before object instantiation):
Or if we access static data:
Console.WriteLine("Here 1"); string s = Dog.Motto; Console.WriteLine("Here 2");
The output is (static constructor called before accessing static data):