Must static objects generally be initialized?

Question

From Programming Language Pragmatics, by Scott

Object lifetimes generally correspond to one of three principal storage allocation mechanisms, used to manage the object’s space:

1. Static objects are given an absolute address that is retained throughout the program’s execution.

2. Stack objects are allocated and deallocated in last-in, first-out order, usually in conjunction with subroutine calls and returns.

3. Heap objects may be allocated and deallocated at arbitrary times. They require a more general (and expensive) storage management algorithm.

For example, in C, static objects must be initialized with constant expressions (expressions which can be evaluated at compile time).

I am not sure whether it is the case in other languages and even what other languages also have static objects.

In general, must static objects be initialized? When initialized, must they be initialized with expressions which can be evaluated at compile time?

By initialization, I mean either explicit or implicit (i.e. automatically done by language implementation), as opposed to uninitailziation. So to rephrase my question: generally, can static objects be left uninitialized by either programs or compilers?

Thanks.

Answer 1

A static variable will be initialized to "zero" automatically, unless you explicitly initialize it.

Other than that and the life-time or linkage part, it's no different than any other variable, which means you can initialize it the same way you initialize any other variable.