Java How to Program, Early Objects, 11th Edition

... variable is initialized to 0 in line 6. If a static variable is not initialized, the compiler assigns it a default value—in this case 0, the default value for type int.

Fig. 8.12

 1   // Fig. 8.12: Employee.java
 2   // static variable used to maintain a count of the number of
 3   // Employee objects in memory.
 4
 5   public class Employee {
 6      private static int count = 0; // number of Employees created
 7      private String firstName;
 8      private String lastName;
 9
10      // initialize Employee, add 1 to static count and
11      // output String indicating that constructor was called
12      public Employee(String firstName, String lastName) {
13         this.firstName = firstName;
14         this.lastName = lastName;
15
16         ++count; // increment static count of employees
17 System.out.printf( ...