C++ string length error using pointers

Code:

#include<iostream>
#include<conio.h>
#include<string.h>

using namespace std;

void main()
{
	char *a;
	int i,count=0;
	a="manu";
	cout<<"Enter the string:";
	cin>>a;

	for(i=0;a[i]!='\0';++i)
	{
		++count;
	}

	cout<<"The length of the string is %d"<<count;
	
}

The following program was tried by me on Visual Studio 2008 and I got an error :-
"Unhandled exception at 0x689e63b1 (msvcp90d.dll) in ptr4.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation writing location 0x00f17840."

However turbo c(which i have been using for long and plan to migrate to vs2008) shows no error

Please help me

PS The code is nt optimized

 

You have to get your C Basics right.

char pointer values cannot be assigned like strings.

 

1. alocate some memory for the variable a.
2. try strcpy function instead of assigning.

 

The error came because 'a' is pointing to const "manu". that means if manu address is starting at "0x1000" then 'a' will also point to "0x1000". when we try to enter our own string and tries to update the 'a'. it leads to an error.
to solve this problem, we need to allocate memory and copy the string "manu" to 'a' instead of assigning.