title: Effect of return type being static
body: <p>What are the possible effect of returning a static type data. And when should we actually use it?</p>
  
  <pre><code>static ssize_t
  my_read(int fd, char *ptr)
  {
      //code from Stevens Unix Network programming. 
        if (something)
           return (-1)
        if (something else)
            return (0)
  
  
        return (1)
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>why static here? </p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>