short, simple and frustrating

Originally posted by prosh0t
Why does it generate an illegal operation when the program runs? If i change the declaration from char *temp5 to char temp5[] it works, but isn't an array just a pointer to the beginning anyways? shouldn't they be the same? i guess not but i'm just wondering why...Because when you declare char *temp5 = "abc", you don't declare an array but a pointer to static, initialized data. That data (your string literal) lies in a data segment which is write protected - that's why you get the access violation.

As gstercken noted, the data resides in protected memory. You
can only read it.

In order to make a change, you need to allocate memory, copy
the data to the memory, and then make the change.

This will work for you:

void main()
{
char temp5[5] = "abc"; // allocate and copy in one statement
temp5[2] = 'd';
cout<<temp5[2];
}