title: Creating and populating a map in a header file in C++
body: <p>It doesn't seem like C++ really has a way to do this, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.</p>
  
  <p>What I'd like to do is create a map (in this case to map one set of strings to another, not that the datatypes should matter really) inside a header file, so that multiple source files can then access that map directly.</p>
  
  <p>Right now I just have a function defined in my header file and implemented in the source file that essentially does this exact function, but I'd prefer to use a map since I would then be able to see at one glance what the keys/values are.</p>
  
  <p>The problem I'm running into with this is that populating the map requires executable code, which I can't exactly just place into a header file. Is there any good way to achieve what I'm trying to do?</p>