This is an amateur question. I searched for other posts about this topic, found lots of results, but am yet to understand the concepts behind the solution. 

This is a practice problem in my C++ book. It is not assigned homework. [Instructions here][1] .

WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO DO:

```
string input;
getline(cin, input); //Get the user's input.

int front = 0;
int rear;

rear = input.size();

```

WHAT THE PROBLEM WANTS ME TO DO

```
string input;
getline(cin, input); //Get the user's input.

int* front = 0;
int* rear;

rear = input.size();

```

Error: a value of type "size\_t" cannot be assigned to an entity of type int\*

This makes sense to me, as you cannot assign an 'address' of an int to the value of an int. 
So my questions are:

* What is the correct way to go about this? Should I just forget about initializing front\* or rear\* to ints? Just avoid that all together? If so, what would be the syntax of that solution?
* Why would this problem want me to use pointers like this? It's clear this is a horrible usage of pointers. Without pointers I could complete this problem in like 30 seconds. It's just really frustrating.
* I don't really see an advantage to EVER using pointers aside from doing something like returning an array by using pointers.

Thanks guys. I know you like to help users that help themselves so I did some research about this first. I'm just really irritated with the concept of pointers right now vs. just using the actual variable itself.

Posts about this topic that I've previously read:

* [Example 1][2]
* [Example 2][3]
* [Example 3][4]

[1]: [http://i.imgur.com/wlufckg.png](https://i.imgur.com/wlufckg.png) "Instructions"
[2]: [How does reversing a string with pointers works](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28802398/how-does-reversing-a-string-with-pointers-works) "Post 1"
[3]: [Reverse string with pointers?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20220439/reverse-string-with-pointers) "Post 2"
[4]: [Reverse char string with pointers](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29816086/reverse-char-string-with-pointers) "Post 3"