Search code examples
cstring-literals

C: string-literal - question

Is only in char *ptr = "Hello World" a string literal or are both "Hello World" string literals?

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(void) {

    char array[] = { "Hello World" };
    char *ptr = "Hello World";

    printf( "%s\n", array );
    printf( "%s\n", ptr );

    printf( "%c\n", *array );
    printf( "%c\n", *ptr );

    printf( "%c\n", array[1] );
    printf( "%c\n", ptr[1] );

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

# Hello World
# Hello World
# H
# H
# e
# e
Solution

  • "Hello world" is always a string literal, no matter what you do with it.

    char *ptr = "Hello World"; defines a pointer which points to space which is often not modifiable (so you should handle it like a const char * and your compiler might actually complain if you don't).

    char array[] = { "Hello World" }; creates the array on the stack so it's modifiable and roughly equal to char array[sizeof("Hello World")]; strcpy(array, "Hello World");