Question about C strings

[LN3RX9L8]

What exactly does this line mean when we use it with c strings?

stream.getline(variable, max_size);

[Peter87]

http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/basic_istream/getline

[Zaita]

http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/articles/6046/

[LN3RX9L8]

thanks