Is it possible to modify a string of char in C?

Question

I have been struggling for a few hours with all sorts of C tutorials and books related to pointers but what I really want to know is if it\'s possible to change a char point

Answer 1

All are good answers explaining why you cannot modify string literals because they are placed in read-only memory. However, when push comes to shove, there is a way to do this. Check out this example:

#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stddef.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int take_me_back_to_DOS_times(const void *ptr, size_t len);

int main()
{
    const *data = "Bender is always sober.";
    printf("Before: %s\n", data);
    if (take_me_back_to_DOS_times(data, sizeof(data)) != 0)
        perror("Time machine appears to be broken!");
    memcpy((char *)data + 17, "drunk!", 6);
    printf("After: %s\n", data);

    return 0;
}

int take_me_back_to_DOS_times(const void *ptr, size_t len)
{
    int pagesize;
    unsigned long long pg_off;
    void *page;

    pagesize = sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE);
    if (pagesize < 0)
        return -1;
    pg_off = (unsigned long long)ptr % (unsigned long long)pagesize;
    page = ((char *)ptr - pg_off);
    if (mprotect(page, len + pg_off, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE | PROT_EXEC) == -1)
        return -1;
    return 0;
}

I have written this as part of my somewhat deeper thoughts on const-correctness, which you might find interesting (I hope :)).

Hope it helps. Good Luck!

Answer 2

A lot of folks get confused about the difference between char* and char[] in conjunction with string literals in C. When you write:

char *foo = "hello world";

...you are actually pointing foo to a constant block of memory (in fact, what the compiler does with "hello world" in this instance is implementation-dependent.)

Using char[] instead tells the compiler that you want to create an array and fill it with the contents, "hello world". foo is the a pointer to the first index of the char array. They both are char pointers, but only char[] will point to a locally allocated and mutable block of memory.

Answer 3

The memory for a & b is not allocated by you. The compiler is free to choose a read-only memory location to store the characters. So if you try to change it may result in seg fault. So I suggest you to create a character array yourself. Something like: char a[10]; strcpy(a, "Hello");

Answer 4

You need to copy the string into another, not read-only memory buffer and modify it there. Use strncpy() for copying the string, strlen() for detecting string length, malloc() and free() for dynamically allocating a buffer for the new string.

For example (C++ like pseudocode):

int stringLength = strlen( sourceString );
char* newBuffer = malloc( stringLength + 1 );

// you should check if newBuffer is 0 here to test for memory allocaton failure - omitted

strncpy( newBuffer, sourceString, stringLength );
newBuffer[stringLength] = 0;

// you can now modify the contents of newBuffer freely

free( newBuffer );
newBuffer = 0;

Answer 5

You could also use strdup:

   The strdup() function returns a pointer to a new string which is a duplicate of the string  s.
   Memory for the new string is obtained with malloc(3), and can be freed with free(3).

For you example:

char *a = strdup("stack overflow");

Answer 6

It seems like your question has been answered but now you might wonder why char *a = "String" is stored in read-only memory. Well, it is actually left undefined by the c99 standard but most compilers choose to it this way for instances like:

printf("Hello, World\n");

c99 standard(pdf) [page 130, section 6.7.8]:

The declaration:

char s[] = "abc", t[3] = "abc";

defines "plain" char array objects s and t whose elements are initialized with character string literals. This declaration is identical to char

s[] = { 'a', 'b', 'c', '\0' }, t[] = { 'a', 'b', 'c' };

The contents of the arrays are modifiable. On the other hand, the declaration

char *p = "abc";

defines p with type "pointer to char" and initializes it to point to an object with type "array of char" with length 4 whose elements are initialized with a character string literal. If an attempt is made to use p to modify the contents of the array, the behavior is undefined.