Syntax:
#include <cstdlib> long strtol( const char *start, char **end, int base );
The strtol() function returns whatever it encounters first in start as a long, doing the conversion to base if necessary. end is set to point to whatever is left in start after the long. If the result can not be represented by a long, then strtol() returns either LONG_MAX or LONG_MIN. Zero is returned upon error.
end can be NULL, but it is not recommended since testing whether end is different than start is the only way to tell an actual 0 to an error 0 (representing that no number was read at all). If LONG_MAX or LONG_MIN are returned, errno will be set to ERANGE.