What is the difference between a String Constant and String Literal in C?

Question

What's the difference between a String Constant and String Literal in plain C?

This question is similar to another: What's the difference between a string constant and a string literal? ...except that one was regarding Objective-C (using NSString) and not C.

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 12 '10 at 03:36

7

In the C99 Draft from 2007 the term sting literal is used. The term string constant does not appear in the draft at all.

I find string literal to be a good term choice when talking about "foo" (just as 42 is a literal number, "foo" is a literal string).

answered Oct 12 '10 at 03:36

Thanks for the clarification. :) What confused me was that many books use the term String Constant, but C99 uses String Literal as you said. – Dave Oct 12 '10 at 03:46

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 12 '10 at 03:23

2

They are one and the same. Merely a preference in which word you use to describe the string.

answered Oct 12 '10 at 03:23

Alex

1

You mean which *string* is used to describe the string :) – Arun Oct 12 '10 at 05:00
2

Not all constants are literals. – Ben Voigt Jan 01 '13 at 05:26

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 12 '10 at 03:22

1

The spelling of the second word used to describe the same idea?

I would regard them as the same thing - alternative terms for the same construct.

answered Oct 12 '10 at 03:22

Jonathan Leffler

So basically, either the phrase String Literal or String Constant can be used to mean the same thing? – Dave Oct 12 '10 at 03:24
1

@Dave: Yes, that's what I said (slightly caveated) - and what other people said too. – Jonathan Leffler Oct 12 '10 at 03:40
As noted by @BenVoigt in other comments, a literal is a constant, but a constant may not be a literal. – jweyrich Jan 01 '13 at 05:33

mikek3332002 · Answer 4 · 2010-10-12T04:05:14.400

0

const char * strConst;
strConst = "Hello World";

In this example

strConst is a string constant.
"Hello World" is a string literal, and is typically stored in the read only area of the program.

edited Oct 12 '10 at 04:05

answered Oct 12 '10 at 03:36

mikek3332002

3

Interesting analysis, but it doesn't really stand up, I'm afraid. The variable `strConst` is, indeed, a variable; it may be changed to point to other strings than the string literal, but you will not be able to modify the string pointed at via `strConst`. If you had written `const char * const strConst = "Hello World";`, then you might have a stronger case, but `strConst` is still a pointer rather than a string constant; a constant pointer to a constant string, but still a pointer, not a string constant. – Jonathan Leffler Oct 12 '10 at 03:44
Point was that literals are actual text not hidden via a varible label. But they are both constant character arrays. – mikek3332002 Oct 12 '10 at 04:10

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 12 '10 at 03:38

0

Literal and constant mean the same which is notation for representing a fixed value in source code.

answered Oct 12 '10 at 03:38

codaddict

1

Not true. `sizeof (int)` is a constant, but it is not a literal. – Ben Voigt Jan 01 '13 at 05:28

5 Answers5