type of string literals

Richard H. Gumpertz rhg at cpsolv.CPS.COM
Fri Jan 19 04:38:14 AEST 1990


I can't find an explicit definition in the C standard of the type of a string
literal.  That is, is it "array of char"?  The answer only matters, as best I
can tell, when used with sizeof (and maybe when passed to a function that
takes a char[10] argument).  Is sizeof("abcdefghi") 9, 9+1, or sizeof(char *)?

The best I can find is in 3.3.1: "It is an lvalue with type as detailed in
3.1.4."  The type of string literals is NOT detailed in 3.1.4; the type of
each element is detailed there.  Given that it is an lvalue, however, I
conclude that it must be the whole array, including the terminating '\0' and
so sizeof("abcdefghi") is 10.

Am I correct?  Please respond with citations to the standard, not gestalt.
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