How to create a Singleton in C?

Question

What's the best way to create a singleton in C? A concurrent solution would be nice.

Answer 1

First, C is not suitable for OO programming. You'd be fighting all the way if you do. Secondly, singletons are just static variables with some encapsulation. So you can use a static global variable. However, global variables typically have far too many ills associated with them. You could otherwise use a function local static variable, like this:

 int *SingletonInt() {
     static int instance = 42;
     return &instance;
 }

or a smarter macro:

#define SINGLETON(t, inst, init) t* Singleton_##t() { \
                 static t inst = init;               \
                 return &inst;                       \
                }

#include <stdio.h>  

/* actual definition */
SINGLETON(float, finst, 4.2);

int main() {
    printf("%f\n", *(Singleton_float()));
    return 0;
}

And finally, remember, that singletons are mostly abused. It is difficult to get them right, especially under multi-threaded environments...