The C FAQ that @matli linked to mentions it, but no one else here has yet, so for clarification: if a string literal (double-quoted string in your source) is used anywhere other than to initialize a character array (ie: @Mark's second example, which works correctly), that string is stored by the compiler in a special static string table, which is akin to creating a global static variable (read-only, of course) that is essentially anonymous (has no variable "name"). The read-only part is the important part, and is why the @Mark's first code example segfaults.

参见C常见问题，问题1.32

Q: What is the difference between these initializations? char a[] = "string literal"; char *p = "string literal"; My program crashes if I try to assign a new value to p[i]. A: A string literal (the formal term for a double-quoted string in C source) can be used in two slightly different ways: As the initializer for an array of char, as in the declaration of char a[] , it specifies the initial values of the characters in that array (and, if necessary, its size). Anywhere else, it turns into an unnamed, static array of characters, and this unnamed array may be stored in read-only memory, and which therefore cannot necessarily be modified. In an expression context, the array is converted at once to a pointer, as usual (see section 6), so the second declaration initializes p to point to the unnamed array's first element. Some compilers have a switch controlling whether string literals are writable or not (for compiling old code), and some may have options to cause string literals to be formally treated as arrays of const char (for better error catching).

The

 char *str = "string";

Line定义了一个指针，并将其指向一个字面值字符串。字面值字符串是不可写的，所以当你这样做:

  str[0] = 'z';

你会得到一个隔离失误。在某些平台上，字面值可能位于可写内存中，因此您不会看到段错误，但无论如何它都是无效代码(导致未定义的行为)。

线:

char str[] = "string";

分配一个字符数组并将字面值字符串复制到该数组中，该数组是完全可写的，因此后续更新没有问题。

The C FAQ that @matli linked to mentions it, but no one else here has yet, so for clarification: if a string literal (double-quoted string in your source) is used anywhere other than to initialize a character array (ie: @Mark's second example, which works correctly), that string is stored by the compiler in a special static string table, which is akin to creating a global static variable (read-only, of course) that is essentially anonymous (has no variable "name"). The read-only part is the important part, and is why the @Mark's first code example segfaults.

因为在第一个例子的上下文中，“whatever”的类型是const char*(即使你将它赋值给一个非const char*)，这意味着你不应该尝试写它。

编译器通过将字符串放在内存的只读部分来强制执行这一点，因此写入它会产生段错误。

通常，当程序运行时，字符串字面值存储在只读内存中。这是为了防止您意外地更改字符串常量。在第一个例子中，"string"存储在只读内存中，*str指向第一个字符。当您试图将第一个字符更改为'z'时，会发生段错误。

在第二个例子中，字符串"string"被编译器从其只读母数组复制到str[]数组中。然后允许更改第一个字符。你可以通过打印每个地址来检查:

printf("%p", str);

同样，在第二个例子中打印str的大小会显示编译器已经为它分配了7个字节:

printf("%d", sizeof(str));