// create a string constant like this - will be read only
char *str_p;
str_p = "String constant";

// create an array of characters like this 
char *arr_p;
char arr[] = "String in an array";
arr_p = &arr[0];

// now we try to change a character in the array first, this will work
*arr_p = 'E';

// lets try to change the first character of the string contant
*str_p = 'G'; // this will result in a segmentation fault. Comment it out to work.


/*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 *  String constants can't be modified. A segmentation fault is the result,
 *  because most operating systems will not allow a write
 *  operation on read only memory.
 *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

//print both strings to see if they have changed
printf("%s\n", str_p); //print the string without a variable
printf("%s\n", arr_p); //print the string, which is in an array. 

char *str = "string";  

上面的代码将str设置为指向在程序的二进制映像中硬编码的字面值“string”，它在内存中可能被标记为只读。

因此str[0]=试图写入应用程序的只读代码。我猜这可能依赖于编译器。

5.5节K&R的字符指针和功能也讨论了这个主题:

There is an important difference between these definitions: char amessage[] = "now is the time"; /* an array */ char *pmessage = "now is the time"; /* a pointer */ amessage is an array, just big enough to hold the sequence of characters and '\0' that initializes it. Individual characters within the array may be changed but amessage will always refer to the same storage. On the other hand, pmessage is a pointer, initialized to point to a string constant; the pointer may subsequently be modified to point elsewhere, but the result is undefined if you try to modify the string contents.

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));

// create a string constant like this - will be read only
char *str_p;
str_p = "String constant";

// create an array of characters like this 
char *arr_p;
char arr[] = "String in an array";
arr_p = &arr[0];

// now we try to change a character in the array first, this will work
*arr_p = 'E';

// lets try to change the first character of the string contant
*str_p = 'G'; // this will result in a segmentation fault. Comment it out to work.


/*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 *  String constants can't be modified. A segmentation fault is the result,
 *  because most operating systems will not allow a write
 *  operation on read only memory.
 *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

//print both strings to see if they have changed
printf("%s\n", str_p); //print the string without a variable
printf("%s\n", arr_p); //print the string, which is in an array. 

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).