Question

Consider the function:

char *func()
{
    return "Some thing";
}

Is the constant string (char array) "Some thing" stored in the stack as local to the function call or as global in the heap?

I’m guessing it’s in the heap.

If the function is called multiple times, how many copies of "Some thing" are in the memory? (And is it the heap or stack?)

Answer 1

String literal “Some thing” is of type const char*. So, they are neither on heap nor on stack but on a read only location which is a implementation detail.

From Wikipedia

Data

The data area contains global and static variables used by the program
that are initialized. This segment can be further classified into
initialized read-only area and initialized read-write area. For
instance the string defined by char s[] = “hello world” in C and a C
statement like int debug=1 outside the “main” would be stored in
initialized read-write area. And a C statement like const char* string
= “hello world” makes the string literal “hello world” to be stored in
initialized read-only area and the character pointer variable string
in initialized read-write area. Ex: static int i = 10 will be stored
in data segment and global int i = 10 will be stored in data segment