reading negative numbers from a file in VB

[complete]

So far the code I have written can read and write to and from a file.

In other words, I have the

    Line Input  #FileNum...

and the

     Write #FileNum...

written.

But how do I handel a situation where the file has negative numbers to be read? I am able to output to a file a negative integer. But when I try to read it back I get an error.
I assume I will have to read each line of the file one by one into a string and then have it converted. What are the string conversion routines in VB? The line of code is written as

-1

I suppose I have to do some string manipulation to get it stored back as a negative integer.