Memory allocation of string literal in c - memory-management

Question

I am having a strange issue with memory allocation in c, the file is fairly complicated so I cannot include it all here but perhaps you can point me in the right direction as to why this may be happening.
I am trying to create a string literal as such:
char * p = "root"
But when i look at the value of this variable at runtime (at the line directly after the declaration) i get this:
$1 = 0x7001260c "me"
and when I look at the contents of the memory at 0x7001260c it indeed holds the string "me".
EDIT:
To give more context when I run the following code the value of p on the last line is "root".
create_directory("root/home");
char * p = "root";
char * q = "foo";
And when I run the following code the value of p is "io"
create_directory("io/home");
char * p = "root";
char * q = "foo";
The create_directory function:
void create_directory(char * path) {
directory d;
directory * dir = &d;
//Browse to closest directory
path = find_directory(path, dir);
//Create remaining directories
char component[20];
path = next_component(path, component);
while (strlen(component) > 0) {
add_dir_entry(dir, component, inode_next);
write_dir_entry(dir, inode_to_loc(dir->inode));
directory new;
new.type = DIRECTORY;
new.inode = inode_next;
write_dir_entry(&new, inode_to_loc(inode_next));
inode_next++;
dir = &new;
path = next_component(path, component);
}
}

Answer 1

Almost certainly, there's a bug somewhere in your program that causes a constant to be modified which is, of course, illegal. Perhaps you're doing something like this:
void to_lower(char *j)
{
while (*j != 0) { *j = tolower(*j); j++; }
}
...
bool is_yes(char *k)
{
to_lower(k);
return strcmp(k, "yes") == 0;
}
void someFunc(char *k)
{
if (is_yes(k)) // ...
...
}
someFunc("testing");
See what this does? We pass a pointer to a constant to sumeFunc, but it flows down to to_lower which modifies the thing it points to -- modifying a constant.
Somehow, your code probably does something like that.
Start by changing code like char * p = "root" to code like char const* p = "root". That will give you a better chance of catching this kind of problem at compile time.