Thread: Can't Return/Assign Char Pointer

Hey Folks,

I'm getting an "incompatible types in assignment" error and warning as well as a "return makes pointer from integer without cast" warning. Yes, I'm a newb. I've been reading the tutorials here and on other sites as well as K & R but I still haven't been able to get this code straigtened out. I want to return the contents of the pointer to char array from each call to get_input to the specified part of the structure in input (). Thanks for reading.

Code:

contact input ();
char* get_input (char[26], int);

Code:

contact input ()                                                /* gets an entry from the user */
{
     contact entry = {'\0','\0','\0','\0','\0','\0','\0','\0'}; /* initializes the structure   */
     char prompt1[26] = "Please enter a new name.";
     char prompt2[26] = "Enter a street address.";
     char prompt3[26] = "Enter a city.";
     char prompt4[26] = "Enter a province.";
     char prompt5[26] = "Enter a post code.";
     char prompt6[26] = "Enter a country.";
     char prompt7[26] = "Enter a date of birth.";
     char prompt8[26] = "Enter a phone number.";
     char prompt9[26] = "Enter an email address.";

     entry.name = get_input (prompt1, 50);
     entry.add.street = get_input (prompt2, 50);
     entry.add.city = get_input (prompt3, 50);
     entry.add.state = get_input (prompt4, 50);
     entry.add.post = get_input (prompt5, 50);
     entry.add.country = get_input (prompt6, 50);
     entry.birth = get_input (prompt7, 50);
     entry.phone = get_input (prompt8, 50);
     entry.email = get_input (prompt9, 50);
     
     return (entry);
}    

char *get_input (char prompt[26], int size)
{
     char string [50];
     char *pointer;
     pointer = &string;
     char junk = 0;
     int length;
     
                do{
                printf ("\n%s\n\n>", prompt);
                fgets(string, sizeof(string), stdin);   
                    if ( strchr(string, '\n') == NULL ){         /* if overflow */
                    printf ("\nYour entry is too long, please try again.\a");
                    while((junk = getchar()) != '\n' && junk != EOF);
                    string[0] = '\0';
                    }
                } while (string[0] == '\0' || string[0] == '\n');
     length = strlen (string);             
     if (string[length - 1] == '\n'){
         string[length - 1] == '\0';}                            /* replace \n  */
     return *pointer;
}