Robust C89 strtol-based solution

With:

• no undefined behavior (as could be had with the atoi family)
• a stricter definition of integer than strtol (e.g. no leading whitespace nor trailing trash chars)
• classification of the error case (e.g. to give useful error messages to users)
• a "testsuite"

#include <assert.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <limits.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

typedef enum {
    STR2INT_SUCCESS,
    STR2INT_OVERFLOW,
    STR2INT_UNDERFLOW,
    STR2INT_INCONVERTIBLE
} str2int_errno;

/* Convert string s to int out.
 *
 * @param[out] out The converted int. Cannot be NULL.
 *
 * @param[in] s Input string to be converted.
 *
 *     The format is the same as strtol,
 *     except that the following are inconvertible:
 *
 *     - empty string
 *     - leading whitespace
 *     - any trailing characters that are not part of the number
 *
 *     Cannot be NULL.
 *
 * @param[in] base Base to interpret string in. Same range as strtol (2 to 36).
 *
 * @return Indicates if the operation succeeded, or why it failed.
 */
str2int_errno str2int(int *out, char *s, int base) {
    char *end;
    if (s[0] == '\0' || isspace((unsigned char) s[0]))
        return STR2INT_INCONVERTIBLE;
    errno = 0;
    long l = strtol(s, &end, base);
    /* Both checks are needed because INT_MAX == LONG_MAX is possible. */
    if (l > INT_MAX || (errno == ERANGE && l == LONG_MAX))
        return STR2INT_OVERFLOW;
    if (l < INT_MIN || (errno == ERANGE && l == LONG_MIN))
        return STR2INT_UNDERFLOW;
    if (*end != '\0')
        return STR2INT_INCONVERTIBLE;
    *out = l;
    return STR2INT_SUCCESS;
}

int main(void) {
    int i;
    /* Lazy to calculate this size properly. */
    char s[256];

    /* Simple case. */
    assert(str2int(&i, "11", 10) == STR2INT_SUCCESS);
    assert(i == 11);

    /* Negative number . */
    assert(str2int(&i, "-11", 10) == STR2INT_SUCCESS);
    assert(i == -11);

    /* Different base. */
    assert(str2int(&i, "11", 16) == STR2INT_SUCCESS);
    assert(i == 17);

    /* 0 */
    assert(str2int(&i, "0", 10) == STR2INT_SUCCESS);
    assert(i == 0);

    /* INT_MAX. */
    sprintf(s, "%d", INT_MAX);
    assert(str2int(&i, s, 10) == STR2INT_SUCCESS);
    assert(i == INT_MAX);

    /* INT_MIN. */
    sprintf(s, "%d", INT_MIN);
    assert(str2int(&i, s, 10) == STR2INT_SUCCESS);
    assert(i == INT_MIN);

    /* Leading and trailing space. */
    assert(str2int(&i, " 1", 10) == STR2INT_INCONVERTIBLE);
    assert(str2int(&i, "1 ", 10) == STR2INT_INCONVERTIBLE);

    /* Trash characters. */
    assert(str2int(&i, "a10", 10) == STR2INT_INCONVERTIBLE);
    assert(str2int(&i, "10a", 10) == STR2INT_INCONVERTIBLE);

    /* int overflow.
     *
     * `if` needed to avoid undefined behaviour
     * on `INT_MAX + 1` if INT_MAX == LONG_MAX.
     */
    if (INT_MAX < LONG_MAX) {
        sprintf(s, "%ld", (long int)INT_MAX + 1L);
        assert(str2int(&i, s, 10) == STR2INT_OVERFLOW);
    }

    /* int underflow */
    if (LONG_MIN < INT_MIN) {
        sprintf(s, "%ld", (long int)INT_MIN - 1L);
        assert(str2int(&i, s, 10) == STR2INT_UNDERFLOW);
    }

    /* long overflow */
    sprintf(s, "%ld0", LONG_MAX);
    assert(str2int(&i, s, 10) == STR2INT_OVERFLOW);

    /* long underflow */
    sprintf(s, "%ld0", LONG_MIN);
    assert(str2int(&i, s, 10) == STR2INT_UNDERFLOW);

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

GitHub upstream.

Based on: https://stackoverflow.com/a/6154614/895245

The possible options are described below:

1. sscanf()

    #include <cstdio>
    #include <string>

        int i;
        float f;
        double d;
        std::string str;

        // string -> integer
        if(sscanf(str.c_str(), "%d", &i) != 1)
            // error management

        // string -> float
        if(sscanf(str.c_str(), "%f", &f) != 1)
            // error management
    
        // string -> double 
        if(sscanf(str.c_str(), "%lf", &d) != 1)
            // error management

This is an error (also shown by cppcheck) because "scanf without field width limits can crash with huge input data on some versions of libc" (see here, and here).

2. std::sto*()

    #include <iostream>
    #include <string>

        int i;
        float f;
        double d;
        std::string str;

        try {
            // string -> integer
            int i = std::stoi(str);

            // string -> float
            float f = std::stof(str);

            // string -> double 
            double d = std::stod(str);
        } catch (...) {
            // error management
        }   

This solution is short and elegant, but it is available only on C++11 compliant compilers.

3. sstreams

    #include <string>
    #include <sstream>

        int i;
        float f;
        double d;
        std::string str;

        // string -> integer
        std::istringstream ( str ) >> i;

        // string -> float
        std::istringstream ( str ) >> f;

        // string -> double 
        std::istringstream ( str ) >> d;

        // error management ??

However, with this solution is hard to distinguish between bad input (see here).

4. Boost's lexical_cast

    #include <boost/lexical_cast.hpp>
    #include <string>

        std::string str;

        try {
            int i = boost::lexical_cast<int>( str.c_str());
            float f = boost::lexical_cast<int>( str.c_str());
            double d = boost::lexical_cast<int>( str.c_str());
            } catch( boost::bad_lexical_cast const& ) {
                // Error management
        }

However, this is just a wrapper of sstream, and the documentation suggests to use sstream for better error management (see here).

5. strto*()

This solution is very long, due to error management, and it is described here. Since no function returns a plain int, a conversion is needed in case of integer (see here for how this conversion can be achieved).

6. Qt

    #include <QString>
    #include <string>

        bool ok;
        std::string;

        int i = QString::fromStdString(str).toInt(&ok);
        if (!ok)
            // Error management
    
        float f = QString::fromStdString(str).toFloat(&ok);
        if (!ok)
            // Error management 

        double d = QString::fromStdString(str).toDouble(&ok);
        if (!ok)
    // Error management     
    

Conclusions

Summing up, the best solution is C++11 std::stoi() or, as a second option, the use of Qt libraries. All other solutions are discouraged or buggy.

As pointed out in a comment, itoa() is not a standard, so better use the sprintf() approach suggested in the rival answer!

You can use the itoa() function to convert your integer value to a string.

Here is an example:

int num = 321;
char snum[5];

// Convert 123 to string [buf]
itoa(num, snum, 10);

// Print our string
printf("%s\n", snum);

If you want to output your structure into a file there isn't any need to convert any value beforehand. You can just use the printf format specification to indicate how to output your values and use any of the operators from printf family to output your data.