Scope of (string) literals

Question

I always try to avoid to return string literals, because I fear they aren\'t defined outside of the function. But I\'m not sure if this is the case. Let\'s take, for example

Answer 1

I give you an example so that your confusion becomes somewhat clear

char *f()
{
char a[]="SUMIT";
return a;
}

this won't work.

but

char *f()
{
char *a="SUMIT";
return a;
}

this works.

Reason: "SUMIT" is a literal which has a global scope. while the array which is just a sequence of characters {'S','U','M','I',"T''\0'} has a limited scope and it vanishes as soon as the program is returned.