error C2106: (populating strings)

I'm having trouble populating char arrays. If I populate them when I declare them, I don't get any errors. ie:

char buffer[3]="ab";

However if I declare them, then try to populate them later, I get:

error C2106: '=' : left operand must be l-value (using VC++ 6)

example code:

char buffer[3];
buffer="ab";

I've also tried:

buffer<<"ab";

I can't find any examples in the MSDN library that help. All the ones I found show char being populated when they're declared.
Any help you can give is appreciated thanks.

Jason

Code:

char array[80];
char *p = "Some string";
strcpy ( array, p );
// array now has the contents of p
cout<<array;
cin.getline ( array, 80 );
// array now has whatever the user typed
cout<<array;

-Prelude

Prelude, thanks for your reply, but it seems like I still have to populate a string when it's declared. Even though your example populates a string after it is declared, it populates it with one that was populated when it was declared.
Also, cout, etc. are all used in DOS programming, correct? I should have mentioned it earlier, but I programming strictly for Windows.

What I eventually am trying to work towards is something like this:

In my game I'll have a class, CTrooper, for example, that represents the individual soldiers in the player's army. And I have a string table that lists possible first and last names. I would get a random number that would match one of the entries in each table. That entry would be the soldier's first/last name. ie:

Code:

----PSEUDO---
//start in the middle of the CTrooper class definition//
private:
 char FirstName[16];
 char LastName[16];

//then in the function that would get the names randomly
 CTrooper Trooper1;
 Trooper1.FirstName = randomFname;
 Trooper1.LastName = randomLname;

//of course, the CTrooper.FirstName, etc. part isn't working.

I'm sorry if I seem like I'm lost here. I'm an old VB developer who's trying to make the transition to VC++. So, I really lost on a lot of the proper syntax when it comes to strings, file i/o, and the like.

Thanks again,
Jason

test

The reason what you tried (in the first post) doesn't work is this:

The buffer variable name gets treated as an address that the compiler/linker assigns when it creates the EXE say for example 0x043BCFE0 or whatever. The "ab" string gets stored in another address because it is a string-literal, let's say for example that it gets the address 0x44C9A002. You cannot then in your code say 0x043BCFE0 = 0x44C9A002 which is essentially what the buffer="ab" code fragment gets converted into. It just doesn't work that way. That is why you get the "left operand must be an l-value" message. You must use something similar to the strcpy() function to input data into the character array.

Now, if you use a string object, you can assign data to it like you mention. Like so:

Code:

#include <string>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
    string buffer;
    buffer = "ab";  // Now buffer equals "ab"
    return 0;
}

Thanks, hk! That solves my problem.