C Programming: I want to allow the user to input his own name.?

Question

The problem is that their name can be of any length, so I can't just use a finite length string.

Answer 1

"so I can't just use a finite length string"
Except computer memory is finite. Which means that you _do_ need to use a finite length string. Just choose a length you think unlikely to be exceeded.

In C, it would be something like
char name[80];
fgets(name, sizeof name, stdin);

In C++, use string and iostreams.
std::string name;
std::cin >> name;

Answer 2

You can arrange it so that first n charachers are accepted (just use scanf), the rest of them are ignored. Better yet, write a function GetUsername that would include all the different options.

Answer 3

#include
#include
#include

void main()
{
char name;
cout << "Please enter your name \n\n";
cin >> name;
etc etc....
}


or if you want to input the length of the name and use that to initiliaze a char array;

void main()
{
int length = 0;
cout << "Please enter the length of your name \n\n";
cin>>length;
name = new char[length];
cout << "Please enter your name \n\n";
cin >> name;
etc etc....
}