What's the difference between "hello" and {"hello"}?

Question

In C/C++, what's the difference between the following two line code:

char *str1="hello";  
char *str2={"hello"};  

Answer 1

Per the 2011 C standard, clause 6.7.9 Initialization, paragraph 11: “The initializer for a scalar shall be a single expression, optionally enclosed in braces…”

That is it. There is no semantic difference; the braces simply may be present or may be absent, with no change to the meaning.

Answer 2

Style only in this case. They both result in the same thing, and they're both bad form. You should have used const char * str1="hello";.