When I have class containing a static constructor, is that constructor called when the assembly containing the class is first loaded or when the first reference to that class is hit?
5 Answers
There seems to be a gotcha with static constructors that is answered elsewhere but took a while to digest into a simple explanation. All the docs and explanations claim the static constructor/intializers are "guaranteed" to run before the first class is instantiated or the first static field is referenced. The gotcha comes in when you try to put a static singleton in the class that creates an instance of itself (chicken/egg). In this case the static constructor ends up being called after the instance constructor - and in my case the instance constructor contained code that relied on some static data.
Static constructor called after instance constructor?
Static constructor can run after the non-static constructor. Is this a compiler bug?
(the answer for me was to put the singleton in a separate class or manually initialize the static data in the instance constructor before it is required)
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