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could someone please tell me how to convert a long to a char*

Typically you wouldn't as the compiler might complain if you tried. The long is an signed integer type whereas char * is a pointer. A long may have a value stored in it that can be taken as a pointer but you'd have to be pretty sure how it was derived. The long is also signed, which means it can't accurately describe a 4 Gig address space though, again, the compiler might deal with that in conversion.

That said, if you want to make the attempt, you don't actually convert a long to a char *. Instead you'd take a long and cast its value into an existing char *.

long biggienum = 492342342;

char *mypointer = (char *) biggienum;

biggienum gets assigned a value somwhere and mypointer is assigned that value but cast as a (char *). mypointer would then act as a pointer, hopefully with a value that points to a valid character or character string.

The compiler will absolutely complain, but that is done alot in Windows. For example, GetWindowLong only returns LONGS, but it must return a function pointer when you ask for the WndProc address. Also, the lParam parameter in messages is often a char* (still called an LPSTR, LPCSTR, and many other things.) The cast is safe, unless you are coomplilng for a 64-bit environment. Of course, there is no guarantee for arbitrarily using it, as Lilith has already stated.

The complaint of the compiler can be turned off by going into the project's property pages, under Compiler/General, and selecting No for the option Detect 64-bit Portability Issues.