Program aborts when using strcpy on a char pointer? (Works fine on char array)

Question

I\'m perplexed as to why the following doesn\'t work:

char * f = \"abcdef\";
strcpy(f, \"abcdef\");
printf(\"%s\",f);

char s[] = \"ffffd\";
strcpy(&s[0],          


        

Answer 1

In the first example, you have a pointer to a string literal. This pointer should really be const char *, because any attempt to modify a string literal is undefined behaviour. However, for legacy reasons allows you to use a char * to point at it. But you still shouldn't be trying to modify it.

In the second version, you have a bog-standard array, whose contents happen to be initialised to be equivalent to your string. This is modifiable, as it's your array.