Initialising STL Container which is Static member

[antmd]

Hi
I'm a newbie to C++
I've been trying to find out the best way of initialising a static (private) data member of a class, which is an STL container (Multimap).
I know one can initialise 'simple' static member data types in the definition, by just applying the constructor. e.g. int myClass::myInt(4).
However, when it comes to initialising a static data member which is an STL container, I couldn't think of an easy way.
My solution was to inherit from the STL Container class, defining my own class, and have the constructor for my STL-derived class do it's initialisation (using 'insert' to add some constant mappings).
I am wary of ineriting from the STL, so I have two questions:

1) Is inheriting from the STL classes good, bad or neither?
2) Is there a better way of initialising complex static data members?

I suppose I could have a separate 'initialise' method, but it seems a bit inelegant, given that the class should be ready to use as soon as it's defined.

Best Regards
--Anthony

 

[Themuppeteer]

Can't you create a init method and then call that method in your constructor ? The Muppeteer.

themuppeteer@hotmail.com

Don't eat yellow snow...

 

[antmd]

Hi Muppeteer,
I forgot to mention that the multimap data is kinda like a constant... I would prefer not to re-initialise every time I created a new instance of the class. Or is the compiler smart enough to know not to re-initialise static data? Isn't the contructor called every time a new instance is created?

Regards
--Anthony

 

[Themuppeteer]

Yes, but you could make a static var (sort of a switch,static int's are automatically initialised on 0) that you put on 1 the first time you do the init method, and before the init method is called,you check wether your switch var is 0 or 1. That way,the method is called only once The Muppeteer.

themuppeteer@hotmail.com

Don't eat yellow snow...