[ STATIC ] { PUBLIC | PRIVATE } Identifier AS Datatype [ = Expression ]

This declares a class global variable.

Access

This variable is accessible everywhere in the class it is declared.

• If the PUBLIC keyword is specified, it is also accessible to the other classes having a reference to an object of this class.
• If the STATIC keyword is specified, the same variable will be shared with every object of this class.

Example

Initialization

The variable can be initialized with any Expression.

Example

Alternatively, you can initialize the variable with a newly instanciated object.

[ STATIC ] { PUBLIC | PRIVATE } Identifier AS NEW Class ( Arguments ... )

Or you can initialize the variable with a native dynamic array.

[ STATIC ] { PUBLIC | PRIVATE } Identifier AS NEW Datatype [ Array dimensions ... ]

Note that you can use any expression for specifying array dimensions.

Variables Alignment

Objects are never packed, i.e. variables are aligned to a memory address that is a multiple of its memory length:

• A Boolean or a Byte can be stored at any address.
• A Short is stored at an even address.
• An Integer is stored at an address that is a multiple of four.
• ...and so on.

As the declaration order is respected, so you may have holes in your object. For example, if you declare a Byte variable and just after an Integer variable, you will have a three bytes hole.

Array declaration

They are two sorts of arrays in Gambas: "normal" arrays and "embedded" arrays. They are declared with specific syntaxs.

See Array Declaration for more information.