How do you declare string constants in C?

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I know it's quite idiomatic, or good style at least, in C to declare numeric constants as enums instead of #defineing them.

/* bad style */
#define MAXLINE 1024

/* good/better style */
enum {
    MAX_LINE = 1024
};

Is there an equivalent rule for the definition of string constants?

/* is this good style? */
#define HELLO "Hello World"

/* or is this better? */
const char *HELLO2 = "Howdy";

What do you prefer? If possible show some drawbacks of either method.

c string
5 Answers

Their are a few differences.

#define HELLO "Hello World"

The statement above can be used with preprocessor and can only be change in the preprocessor.

const char *HELLO2 = "Howdy";

The statement above can be changed with c code. Now you can't change the each individual character around like the statement below because its constant.

HELLO2[0] = 'a'

But you what you can do is have it point to a different string like the statement below

HELLO2 = "HELLO WOLRD"

It really depends on how you want to be able to change the variable around. With the preprocessor or c code.

user_49302870
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