Cast from gchar* to int?

["William L. Thomson Jr." <support obsidian-studios com>]

This is a time when me being a newbie to C/C++ really shines.

I need to convert the string that is returned from 

gtk_editable_get_chars(GTK_EDITABLE(num_entry),0,-1);

into an int. 

For the life of me I can't seem to do this, and the standard C functions
do not seem to want to work either

atoi(gtk_editable_get_chars(GTK_EDITABLE(num_entry),0,-1));

I know this is a simple problem, but one I can't seem to figure out.
It's more of a language thing than GTK, but since I am doing this in my
gtk app I thought I would start by asking here. If I asked in a language
specific group, someone would comment to me being off topic.

Thanks in advance.

-- 
Sincerely,
William L. Thomson Jr.
Support Group
Obsidian-Studios Inc.
439 Amber Way
Petaluma, Ca. 94952
Phone  707.766.9509
Fax    707.766.8989
http://www.obsidian-studios.com