Connect the client connection. This function returns instantly without blocking for the connection to be established. In order to find out if the connect call was successful use the ClientStatus() function. Establishing a connection may take several seconds so polling in a separate thread is one solution to determine the success or failure of the connect call. Performs a float to long conversion. The binary representation of the IEEE floating point value is returned as a long. This function does not coerce to a long but interprets the floating point value as a signed long.