Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: modification of strings
Message-ID: <1989Feb8.222046.26889@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <345@lakesys.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 89 22:20:46 GMT

In article <345@lakesys.UUCP> chad@lakesys.UUCP (D. Chadwick Gibbons) writes:
>... Insofar as I have been told, strings can not
>be modified - note, the type char *blah = "this is a string"; not the everyday
>normal strings we use.  This would appear that if you attempted to modify
>their contents, you would either get a core dump of some various flavor, or
>the program would ignore your request...

Not quite; the situation is that either of those things, or something much
more bizarre, can happen.  Note, "can", not "will".  Civilized/portable
programs should never attempt to modify a string literal.  The effects of
trying to modify one are entirely unpredictable.
-- 
Allegedly heard aboard Mir: "A |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
toast to comrade Van Allen!!"  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu