Explain C printf pointers and memory layout

Q: Explain C printf pointers and memory layout

This question evaluates understanding of C pointer semantics, printf format-specifier behavior, memory layout and allocation differences, and practical debugger usage for inspecting addresses and bytes, within the Software Engineering Fundamentals domain.

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Question

You are given the following C code:

const char *c = "12345";

Answer the following (assume typical modern 64-bit Linux/macOS with GCC/Clang, unless a behavior is undefined/implementation-defined):

What does each of the following intend to print, and what actually happens?
- printf("%s", c);
- printf("%d", c);
- printf("%c", c);
- printf("%c", *c);
- printf("%c", *(c+1));
- What is the correct way to print the address stored in c ?
Explain how you would use gdb / lldb to inspect:
- the value of c (as an address)
- the bytes at that address
- the string starting at that address
Memory and allocation fundamentals:
- Compare malloc/free vs new/delete in C/C++ (initialization, constructors/destructors, type safety, failure behavior, arrays, etc.).
- Describe what typically lives in the stack , heap , data/BSS , and text (code) segments. Where does a string literal like "12345" typically reside?

Explain C printf pointers and memory layout

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Explain C printf pointers and memory layout

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