C# Static variables - scope and persistence

Question

I just did a little experiment:

public abstract class MyClass
{
  private static int myInt = 0;

  public static int Foo()
  {
    return myInt;
  }

  public static int Foo(int n)
  {
    myInt = n;
    return bar();
  }

  private static int bar()
  {
    return myInt;
  }
}

and then I ran:

MessageBox.Show(MyClass.Foo().ToString());
MessageBox.Show(MyClass.Foo(3).ToString());
MessageBox.Show(MyClass.Foo().ToString());
MessageBox.Show(MyClass.Foo(10).ToString());
MessageBox.Show(MyClass.Foo().ToString());

The results I expected were 0, 3, 0, 10, 0.

To my surprise, I got 0, 3, 3, 10, 10.

How long do these changes persist for? The duration of the program execution? The duration of the function calling the static method?

Answer 1

They will persist for the duration of AppDomain. Changes done to static variable are visible across methods.

MSDN:

If a local variable is declared with the Static keyword, its lifetime is longer than the execution time of the procedure in which it is declared. If the procedure is inside a module, the static variable survives as long as your application continues running.

See following for more details:

• C#6 Language Specification - Static Variables
• C#6 Language Specification - Application Startup
• MSDN: Static Variable
• MSDN: Variable Lifetime