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: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25746/whats-the-difference-between-a-string-constant-and-a-string-literal ...except that one was regarding Objective-C (using NSString) and not C.

Answer 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.

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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).

Answer 5

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