assigning user input string to a char array

[omega4relay]

I had a problem with the line below, it says it can't convert string to char. I've tried using string.c_str()but ended up getting a mess of errors - I could be using it wrong though.

string y;  
char x[y.length()] = {y}; //where y is a user input via getline 

Why is it that you can initialize an array of chars like:

char x[] = "blah blah";

But if you set that string equal to some string variable it doesn't work?

For context, I'm trying to read in a string from the user via terminal and store it into an array of chars NOT preset to any constant value like 999. It's supposed to read the input, say 4 letters, and output an array of chars of size 4 - which I have managed to do. It's just, actually getting the user inputted string to go into the array is the problem.

[MiiNiPaa]

1) Array size should me know at compile time
2) Assigment or copy initialization does not work properly with arrays.

you will need:
a) allocate memory for your array (you will need y.size() + 1 elements: do not forget terminating 0)
b) Copy characters from string to array.
c) deallocate memory when you are done with array.

[omega4relay]

so what I'm trying to do is impossible? unless I set my char array to a constant size?

[MiiNiPaa]

unless I set my char array to a constant size?

Or dynamically allocate one (with all implicatons of this)

[omega4relay]

figured out how to do what I wanted to do via
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/dynamic/