Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: char *Foo  VS.  char Bar[]
Message-ID: <1989Apr14.161325.28114@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <19636@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 89 16:13:25 GMT

In article <19636@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) writes:
>	char *foo = "     ";
>	...
>	sprintf(foo,"xxxx");
>
>Using gcc on a VAX8650/Ultrix, the sprintf causes a bus error.  The standard
>cc compiler produced code that "worked"...

Old C guaranteed that string constants were writeable storage.  ANSI C says
that the compiler is entitled to make them read-only if it wants.  Many
people have felt all along that writing into string constants was bad
practice.
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