Startup Code

In a nutshell, startup code is a technique that how to call a function before main(). You can find this technique in page204-205 of<<Modern C++ Design>>.

A better explaination is this:

• define a variable in a global scope or in a anonymous namespace scope.
• initialize the variable with the value returned by function, which implict that function's return value should consistent with the variable type, usually we use bool.
• the function was called for the global variable's initializing before main().

An example may give you the idea:

#include  < iostream >
using   namespace  std;

bool  Func() 
{ 
  cout  <<   " in Func "   <<  endl;
   return   true ; 
}

namespace
{
   const   bool  startup  =  Func();
}

void  main()
{
  cout  <<   " in main "    <<  endl;
}

Run the example, you will see that Func() was called before main()

 

 

http://www.cppblog.com/bidepan2023/archive/2007/03/24/20529.html.