Trying to understand how static is working in this case

.net, c#, oop

Solution

If the Instance property returns a SingletonClass class, why can't I call the Instance property on that returned class and so on and so on?

Because you can only access `.Instance` via the `SingletonClass` type, not via an instance of that type.

Since `Instance` is static, you must access it via the type:

SingletonInstance inst = SingletonInstance.Instance; // Access via type

// This fails, because you're accessing it via an instance
// inst.Instance

When you try to chain these, you're effectively doing:

SingletonInstance temp = SingletonInstance.Instance; // Access via type

// ***** BAD CODE BELOW ****
// This fails at compile time, since you're trying to access via an instance
SingletonInstance temp2 = temp.Instance;

Problem

I am looking at some code that a coworker wrote and what I expected to happen isn't. Here is the code: ``` public class SingletonClass { private static readonly SingletonClass _instance = new SingletonClass(); public static SingletonClass Instance { get { return _instance; } } private SingletonClass() { //non static properties are set here this.connectionString = "bla" this.created = System.DateTime.Now; } } ``` In another class, I would have expected to be able to do: ``` private SingletonClass sc = SingletonClass.Instance.Instance.Instance.Instance.Instance.Instance; ``` and it reference the same Instance of that class. What happens is I can only have one `.Instance`. Something that I did not expect. If the `Instance` property returns a `SingletonClass` class, why can't I call the `Instance` property on that returned class and so on and so on?

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