encrypting a string in C using XTEA

[goron]

Hello,

I'm trying to encrypt the final output of my program. This final output is a char buffer, a string, the encrypted form of which I'd like to save to a text file. I have the XTEA code working, but I'm not sure how to use it with a string rather than a long int. Here's the XTEA code, for reference:

void encipher(const unsigned long *const v,unsigned long *const w,
   const unsigned long * const k)
{
   register unsigned long       y=v[0],z=v[1],sum=0,delta=0x9E3779B9,n=32;

   while(n-->0)
      {
      y += (z << 4 ^ z >> 5) + z ^ sum + k[sum&3];
      sum += delta;
      z += (y << 4 ^ y >> 5) + y ^ sum + k[sum>>11 & 3];
      }

   w[0]=y; w[1]=z;
}

void decipher(const unsigned long *const v,unsigned long *const w,
   const unsigned long * const k)
{
   register unsigned long       y=v[0],z=v[1],sum=0xC6EF3720,
				delta=0x9E3779B9,n=32;

   /* sum = delta<<5, in general sum = delta * n */

   while(n-->0)
      {
      z -= (y << 4 ^ y >> 5) + y ^ sum + k[sum>>11 & 3];
      sum -= delta;
      y -= (z << 4 ^ z >> 5) + z ^ sum + k[sum&3];
      }
   
   w[0]=y; w[1]=z;
}

Thanks in advance.