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).

char *str = "string";

分配一个指向字符串字面量的指针，编译器将其放入可执行文件中不可修改的部分;

char str[] = "string";

分配并初始化一个可修改的本地数组

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.

在第一个代码中，"string"是一个字符串常量，字符串常量永远不应该被修改，因为它们通常被放置在只读内存中。"str"是一个用来修改常量的指针。

在第二段代码中，"string"是一个数组初始化器，类似于

char str[7] =  { 's', 't', 'r', 'i', 'n', 'g', '\0' };

"str"是堆栈上分配的数组，可以自由修改。

像“String”这样的字符串文字可能在可执行文件的地址空间中作为只读数据分配(通过编译器)。当你去触摸它时，它会害怕你在它的泳衣区，并让你知道一个隔离错误。

在第一个例子中，你得到一个指向const数据的指针。在第二个示例中，使用const数据的副本初始化一个7个字符的数组。

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.