Storage Class

C Storage Classes are used to describe the features of a variable/function. These features basically include the scope, visibility, and lifetime which help us to trace the existence of a particular variable during the runtime of a program. The main storage classes are:

auto:This is the default storage class for all the variables declared inside a function or a block. Hence, the keyword auto is rarely used while writing programs in C language. Auto variables can be only accessed within the block/function they have been declared and not outside them (which defines their scope). Of course, these can be accessed within nested blocks within the parent block/function in which the auto variable was declared.

static:This storage class is used to declare static variables which are popularly used while writing programs in C language. Static variables have the property of preserving their value even after they are out of their scope! Hence, static variables preserve the value of their last use in their scope. So we can say that they are initialized only once and exist till the termination of the program. Thus, no new memory is allocated because they are not re-declared.
Their scope is local to the function to which they were defined. Global static variables can be accessed anywhere in the program. By default, they are assigned the value 0 by the compiler.

extern:Extern storage class simply tells us that the variable is defined elsewhere and not within the same block where it is used. Basically, the value is assigned to it in a different block and this can be overwritten/changed in a different block as well. So an extern variable is nothing but a global variable initialized with a legal value where it is declared in order to be used elsewhere. It can be accessed within any function/block.

register:This storage class declares register variables that have the same functionality as that of the auto variables. The only difference is that the compiler tries to store these variables in the register of the microprocessor if a free register is available. This makes the use of register variables to be much faster than that of the variables stored in the memory during the runtime of the program. If a free registration is not available, these are then stored in the memory only.

#include <stdio.h>
void function() {
    static int count = 0; // Static variable
    count++;
    printf("Count: %d\n", count);
}
int main() {
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
        function();
    }
    return 0;
}