[Tutor] static PyObject * or non-static

[Rob Benton]

Hey I've been reading through the Extending and Embedding section of the 
python docs.  One thing that keeps appearing is a chunk of code like this:


Section 2.1.1 Adding Data and Methods to the Basic Example
=================================================================
static PyObject *
Noddy_name(Noddy* self)
{
    static PyObject *format = NULL;
    PyObject *args, *result;

    if (format == NULL) {
        format = PyString_FromString("%s %s");
        if (format == NULL)
            return NULL;
    }

    ...
}
=================================================================


I'm curious as to why the format PyObject * is made static.  Should I 
make everything static that can be?  I didn't know if maybe there was a 
reason for doing that.