Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Rentsch Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: relearning C: why does an in-place change to a char* segfault? Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2024 17:43:09 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 33 Message-ID: <868qx0szmq.fsf@linuxsc.com> References: <20240801114615.906@kylheku.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2024 02:43:10 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="088cfa383a3af87f6acebe452dc28057"; logging-data="158184"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18kNRMy2waS11kImn2xdqlTFZGsePTJrkg=" User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:WM4OQA5cMfx7vf92yrFd8Rmo5NI= sha1:BppFhVv49LuPhPQNL/4rXTg5Cqw= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:387556 Kaz Kylheku <643-408-1753@kylheku.com> writes: > On 2024-08-01, Mark Summerfield wrote: > >> This program segfaults at the commented line: >> >> #include >> #include >> >> void uppercase_ascii(char *s) { >> while (*s) { >> *s = toupper(*s); // SEGFAULT >> s++; >> } >> } >> >> int main() { >> char* text = "this is a test"; > > The "this is a test" object is a literal. It is part of the > program's image. When you try to change it, you're making your > program self-modifying. > > The ISO C language standard doesn't require implementations to > support self-modifying programs; the behavior is left undefined. > > It could work in some documented, reliable way, in a given > implementation. > > It's the same with any other constant in the program. [...] That is wrong both technically and practically. And obviously so.