construction of extern objects vs. "normal ones"

[ssouffri]

I'm seeing some strange behavior I can't explain. I have the following code:

in eventq.hh

class EventQueue;       // forward declaration

extern EventQueue mainEventQueue;
...
class EventQueue : public Serializable
{
  private:
    std::string objName;
    Event *head;

    void insert(Event *event);
    void remove(Event *event);

  public:
    typedef std::vector<EventQueue *>  EventQueueSet;
    static EventQueueSet eventQueueSet;

    EventQueue(const std::string &n)
        : objName(n), head(NULL)
    {
    	eventQueueSet.push_back(this);
    	std::cout << "EventQueue(" << n << ") = " << this << "\n";
    }
...
};

in eventq.cc

...
EventQueue mainEventQueue("Main Event Queue");
...

printout from my main (all the other EventQueues are created dynamically)

EventQueue(Main Event Queue) = 0xde3f90
...
EventQueue(system_EventQueue) = 0x1341660
EventQueue(instruction-based event queue) = 0x138dff0
EventQueue(load-based event queue) = 0x138e070
...
iterating over eventQueueSet:
######## (EventQueue=0x1341660) != (mainEventQueue=0xde3f90), eventQueueSet.size()=3
######## (EventQueue=0x138dff0) != (mainEventQueue=0xde3f90), eventQueueSet.size()=3
######## (EventQueue=0x138e070) != (mainEventQueue=0xde3f90), eventQueueSet.size()=3

Now I would expect the code in the constructor to get executed. However when I test this I only see a printout "EventQueue(Main Event Queue) = 0xde3f90" but mainEventQueue doesn't seem to be added to eventQueueSet. But since I see the printout I would think the constructor got executed. So it appears as if I the eventQueueSet got overwritten with a new EventQueueSet after the mainEventQueue was constructed.

How do get the mainEventQueue pointer in the eventQueueSet.

Side note:
I also tried "typedef std::set<EventQueue *> EventQueueSet;" instead of std::vector but then I got a segmentation fault. Both issues probably have the same underlying problem.