I admit that I don't see many uses for a static variable, but they can be usefull and respect a good OO design (IMHO). An example from the top of my head: let say that you have a class that cannot be instanciated more than once. Without a static variable, you need to create a public variable or something like that. Not very OOP. With a static variable, you could create it in the class, initialize it at .T. in the Init() and put it at .F. in the Release(). That way, the class encapsulate this behaviour and respect good OO design.

My 0.02CAN$

>I think OOP takes away much of this reqiurement. Private static vars could be compared with a property of an object. The local versions could be compared with a protected property.
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>Personally I can't see other situations where this might be of any help. IMHO using this kind of variable *could* make programs more complex while there is no need to, when a good OO design is applied. It could be another feature which could confuse developers and make bad designs.