How to copy a string using a pointer

Question

Here\'s a program I wrote to copy a string constant.

When the program is run it crashes. Why is this happening ?

#include 

char *alph         


        

Answer 1

To perform such manual copy:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main()
{
    char* orig_str = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
    char* ptr = orig_str;

    // Memory layout for orig_str:
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // |0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|26|  --> indices
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // |A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K |L |M |N |O |P |Q |R |S |T |U |V |W |X |Y |Z |\0|  --> data
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    int orig_str_size = 0;
    char* bkup_copy = NULL;

    // Count the number of characters in the original string
    while (*ptr++ != '\0')
        orig_str_size++;        

    printf("Size of the original string: %d\n", orig_str_size);

    /* Dynamically allocate space for the backup copy */ 

    // Why orig_str_size plus 1? We add +1 to account for the mandatory 
    // '\0' at the end of the string.
    bkup_copy = (char*) malloc((orig_str_size+1) * sizeof(char));

    // Place the '\0' character at the end of the backup string.
    bkup_copy[orig_str_size] = '\0'; 

    // Current memory layout for bkup_copy:
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // |0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|26|  --> indices
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // | | | | | | | | | | |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\0|  --> data
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    /* Finally, copy the characters from one string to the other */ 

    // Remember to reset the helper pointer so it points to the beginning 
    // of the original string!
    ptr = &orig_str[0]; 
    int idx = 0;
    while (*ptr != '\0')
        bkup_copy[idx++] = *ptr++;

    printf("Original String: %s\n", orig_str);   
    printf("Backup String: %s\n", bkup_copy);

    return 0;
}