Lee Rhodes wrote: > I need to create a class static (const?) array and then initialize it once > when the first instance of the class is declared after which it should never > be modified, only read. This array is too large to use the array {...} > initializer syntax. I need to initialize the array with an algorithm. > > The following obviously does not work, but I'm not sure how to do it. (It is > very easy in Java!) This is a C++ language issue and not a gcc issue. A good book on C++ should explain why the code fails -- static data members must be defined in exactly one unit. This page (and the rest of the site) is a good resource: http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/ctors.html>. It describes several ways of solving the problem you describe. Brian