strcpy core dumps

[Eric Lemings <elemings at uswest dot net>]

Dear GNU Maintainers:

I'm befuddled.  The strcpy function is core dumping and I haven't a clue.  I'm using glibc-2.1.3 and gcc-2.95.2 on a Red Hat 6.2 system.  I don't recalling updating any packages within a month or two and I'm certain strcpy was working not long ago.

My perfectly legitimate, simple little test program:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main (void)
{
  char* text = "this is some text";

  (void) strcpy (text, "this is new text");
  (void) puts (text);

  return (0);
}

My debugging examination (gdb-4.18):

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This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux"...
(gdb) break main
Breakpoint 1 at 0x8048426: file test01.c, line 7.
(gdb) run
Starting program: /home/elemings/dnd3e/dnd3e-0.0.6/test/test01

Breakpoint 1, main () at test01.c:7
7         char* text = "this is some text";
(gdb) n
9         (void) strcpy (text, "this is new text");
(gdb) s
strcpy (dest=0x80484b8 "this is some text", src=0x80484ca "this is new text")
    at ../sysdeps/generic/strcpy.c:33
warning: Source file is more recent than executable.

33        const ptrdiff_t off = dest - src - 1;
(gdb) n
37            c = *s++;
(gdb) print off
$1 = -19
(gdb) n
38            s[off] = c;
(gdb) print c
$2 = 116 't'
(gdb) print *s
$3 = 104 'h'
(gdb) print s[-19]
$4 = 116 't'
(gdb) n

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
strcpy (dest=0x80484b8 "this is some text", src=0x80484ca "this is new text")
    at ../sysdeps/generic/strcpy.c:38
38            s[off] = c;
(gdb)

What can you make of it?

Thanks,
Eric.