Pointers small confusion

Hi coders,I have a small problem regarding pointers, I am a bit weak in pointers and need to understand why the following is wrong:

int main(void)
{
char *a;
gets(a);
return 0;
}
This causes an exception, please explain the error. I am using Turbo C as compiler, suggest a good and latest compiler too!

 

Before doing gets on any character pointer u must first allocated memory dyanamically...like this:-

a=(char*)malloc(10*sizeof(char));

Now u will not get any error...
cheers!!