pointer increments

I am trying to figure out pointer increment here...with method that finds length

I run the program and i get a scrolling mess of characters flying by till program crashes..lol

Code:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int length( char *c ) {
	int cnt=0;
	if(c)                            //check to make sure pointer isnt null.
		for(;c++;cnt++)           //keep running till reach null \0, increment the cnt variable each time.
			cout << *c;
	else
		return 0;
        c-=cnt;
	return cnt;
}

int main()
{
    char *st = "hello world";
	cout << endl <<length(st);
    return 0;
}

Since c is a pointer and you're interested at the characters it points at, you'll need to use a * somewhere to dereference your pointer other than where you just print it.

You don't have to adjust the pointer back to where it started before the function returns.