   c++:   accessing a class static variable
  I have a static variable in a class which I use as a counter - it's initialised to zero and incremented in the constructor.I need to check its value in main(), to see if any members of the class exist, but since it's private, I have getters and setters... but they're only accessible through objects of the class... right?Is the only solution to make the variable public?   
  Functions can be static, too.   ;  so I'd have:static int get_counter() { return counter; }  ?how would I call that from the program?   ;  The same way you'd access any static from outside the class. You prepend MyClass:: to the name to indicate that you want the name from the class. Ex:MyClass::get_counter();;  use CMyClass::get_counter();oh, too late :)   