How to copy a string using a pointer

Question

Here's a program I wrote to copy a string constant.

When the program is run it crashes. Why is this happening ?

#include <stdio.h>

char *alpha = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
char c;
char *l;

main(){
   while((c = *alpha++)!='\0')
       *l++ = *alpha;
   printf("%s\n",l);
}

Answer 1

To copy strings in C, you can use strcpy. Here is an example:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

const char * my_str = "Content";
char * my_copy;
my_copy = malloc(sizeof(char) * (strlen(my_str) + 1));
strcpy(my_copy,my_str);

If you want to avoid accidental buffer overflows, use strncpy instead of strcpy. For example:

const char * my_str = "Content";
const size_t len_my_str = strlen(my_str) + 1;
char * my_copy = malloc(len_my_str);
strncpy(my_copy, my_str, len_my_str);

Answer 2

To perform such manual copy:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main()
{
    char* orig_str = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
    char* ptr = orig_str;

    // Memory layout for orig_str:
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // |0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|26|  --> indices
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // |A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K |L |M |N |O |P |Q |R |S |T |U |V |W |X |Y |Z |\0|  --> data
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    int orig_str_size = 0;
    char* bkup_copy = NULL;

    // Count the number of characters in the original string
    while (*ptr++ != '\0')
        orig_str_size++;        

    printf("Size of the original string: %d\n", orig_str_size);

    /* Dynamically allocate space for the backup copy */ 

    // Why orig_str_size plus 1? We add +1 to account for the mandatory 
    // '\0' at the end of the string.
    bkup_copy = (char*) malloc((orig_str_size+1) * sizeof(char));

    // Place the '\0' character at the end of the backup string.
    bkup_copy[orig_str_size] = '\0'; 

    // Current memory layout for bkup_copy:
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // |0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|26|  --> indices
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // | | | | | | | | | | |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\0|  --> data
    // ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    /* Finally, copy the characters from one string to the other */ 

    // Remember to reset the helper pointer so it points to the beginning 
    // of the original string!
    ptr = &orig_str[0]; 
    int idx = 0;
    while (*ptr != '\0')
        bkup_copy[idx++] = *ptr++;

    printf("Original String: %s\n", orig_str);   
    printf("Backup String: %s\n", bkup_copy);

    return 0;
}

Answer 3

You need to allocate space for l. Currently it is pointing to a random spot in memory, and if you try to write to that spot, the operating system is likely to shut down (AKA crash) your application. If you want your code to work as is, then assign some space for l with malloc() or create l as an character array with enough space to hold "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" plus the NULL terminator.

See http://cslibrary.stanford.edu/106/ for a primer on pointers.