A name is considered to be declared immediately after its declarator but before its (optional) initializer. (For more information on declarators, see Declarations and definitions.)

Consider this example:

// point_of_declaration1.cpp  
// compile with: /W1   
double dVar = 7.0;  
int main()  
{  
   double dVar = dVar;   // C4700  
}  

If the point of declaration were after the initialization, then the local dVar would be initialized to 7.0, the value of the global variable dVar. However, since that is not the case, dVar is initialized to an undefined value.

Scope