Question

I have three variables initialised below :

char c1[] = "Hello";
char c2[] = { 'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\0'};
char* c3 = "Hello";

I am aware that c1 and c2 are the same, and that they are both strings because they are terminated by \0. However, c3 is different from c1 and c2. Is this because c3 does not terminate with a \0? Does that mean that c3 is not a string? If c3 is not a string, then why does printf("%s", c3); not give an error? Thanks!

EDIT:

Is there a reason why c1 and c2 can be modified but c3 can’t?

Answer 1

In terms of C, the most pertinent difference between c3 and the others is that you are not allowed to attempt to modify the underlying characters with c3. I often find it helpful to think of it like this:

char *xyz = "xyz";

will create a modifiable pointer on the stack and make it point at the non-modifiable character sequence {'x','y','z','\0'}. On the other hand,

char xyz[] = "xyz";

will create a modifiable array on the stack big enough to hold the character sequence {'x','y','z','\0'} and then copy that character sequence into it. The array contents will then be modifiable. Keep in mind the standard says nothing about stacks but this is commonly how it’s done. It is just a memory aid, after all.

Formally, c3 is a pointer to a string literal while c1 and c2 are both arrays of characters which both happen to end with a null character. When they’re passed to functions like printf, they decay to a pointer to the first element of the array which means they’ll be treated identically to c3 within that function (actually they decay under quite a few circumstances, see third quote from c99 below for exceptions).

The relevant sections of C99 are 6.4.5 String literals which explains why you’re not allowed to modify what c3 points to:

It is unspecified whether these arrays are distinct provided their elements have the appropriate values. If the program attempts to modify such an array, the behavior is undefined.

and why it does have a null terminator:

In translation phase 7, a byte or code of value zero is appended to each multibyte character sequence that results from a string literal or literals.

And 6.3.2.1 Lvalues, arrays, and function designators under 6.3 Conversions states:

Except when it is the operand of the sizeof operator or the unary & operator, or is a string literal used to initialize an array, an expression that has type ‘‘array of type’’ is converted to an expression with type ‘‘pointer to type’’ that points to the initial element of the array object and is not an lvalue. If the array object has register storage class, the behavior is undefined.