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).

首先是一个不能修改的常量字符串。第二个是一个初始化值的数组，因此它可以被修改。

// 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. 

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。

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。

这些答案大部分都是正确的，但为了更清楚一点……

人们所说的“只读内存”是ASM术语中的文本段。它是内存中加载指令的同一个地方。出于安全等明显的原因，这是只读的。当创建一个初始化为字符串的char*时，字符串数据被编译到文本段中，程序初始化指向文本段的指针。所以如果你想改变它，就死定了。段错误。

当作为数组编写时，编译器将初始化的字符串数据放在数据段中，这与全局变量等存在的位置相同。这个内存是可变的，因为数据段中没有指令。这一次，当编译器初始化字符数组(仍然只是一个char*)时，它指向的是数据段而不是文本段，您可以在运行时安全地更改文本段。