Static constructors and destructors?

[Rick C. Hodgin]

Does C++ offer a static constructor? Something that can be called at
startup to initialize anything specific to static members of a class?

Something like:

class xyz
{
public:
xyz(); // Called for each instance
~xyz(); // Called for each instance

static xyz(); // Called at startup
static ~xyz(); // Called at normal shutdown
}

Or do I need to define my own separate un-encapsulated function
somewhere which then initializes any values I might need for the
class before it's used the first time, so as to not take the test-
on-each-instantiation/deinstantiation performance hit?

Thank you,
Rick C. Hodgin

[Bonita Montero]

I think the best way would be to define another class (maybe
a nested class) and have a static member in the class needing
something like a "static constructor".

--
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