Static Local Variables
A special type of local variable, called a static local, is available in many mainstream languages (including C/C++, Visual Basic, and VB.NET) which allows a value to be retained from one call of the function to another. In this case, recursive calls to the function also have access to the (single, statically allocated) variable. In all of the above languages, static variables are declared as such with a special storage class keyword (e.g., static).
Static locals in global functions can be thought of as global variables, because their value remains in memory for the life of the program. The only difference is that they are only accessible (i.e., scoped) to one function.
This is distinct from other usages of the static keyword, which has several different meanings in various languages.
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