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Python Discussion Thread
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Oct 18th, 2009

letters to numbers

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Is there a built-in function to give the value of a letter?

what I mean is
a=1
b=2
c=3
d=4
e=5
f=6
...

something like letval(a) would give me 1

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Kruptein

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Posting Whiz in Training

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Oct 18th, 2009

Re: letters to numbers

You mean something like this ...

python Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
def letval(x):
    print(x)
 
a = 77
letval(a)
 
# you can just use
print(a)
def letval(x):
    print(x)

a = 77
letval(a)

# you can just use
print(a)

Last edited by vegaseat; Oct 18th, 2009 at 3:18 pm.

vegaseat

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DaniWeb's Hypocrite

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Oct 18th, 2009

Re: letters to numbers

No I don't mean that, that would be stupid.
every letter of the alphabet represents a number
a = the first letter = the first number = 1
b = the second letter = the second number = 2
...
so if I did:

python Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
letval(a) #=1
letval(g) #=7 because g is the seventh letter in the alphabet
letval(a) #=1
letval(g) #=7 because g is the seventh letter in the alphabet

Last edited by Kruptein; Oct 18th, 2009 at 3:27 pm.

Kruptein

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Oct 18th, 2009

Re: letters to numbers

hint: use ord("a") .

Gribouillis

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Posting Maven

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Oct 18th, 2009

Re: letters to numbers

hm okay, but in that case I have to make a difference between caps and lowercase letters,... but I will work with that.

Kruptein

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Oct 18th, 2009

Re: letters to numbers

Convert them all to lower case before using ord:

Python Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
l =  l.lower()
l =  l.lower()

Last edited by scru; Oct 18th, 2009 at 5:07 pm.

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Posting Virtuoso

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Oct 18th, 2009

Re: letters to numbers

If you are only interested in the letter's position in the alphabet, you can use something like this ...

python Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
import string
 
def letter_position(letter):
    ucase = string.uppercase
    pos = ucase.find(letter.upper()) + 1
    if pos:
        print( "%s has position %d in the alphabet" % (letter, pos) )
 
letter_position('E')
letter_position('f')
letter_position('a')
letter_position('Z')
letter_position('8')  # a number gives no response
import string

def letter_position(letter):
    ucase = string.uppercase
    pos = ucase.find(letter.upper()) + 1
    if pos:
        print( "%s has position %d in the alphabet" % (letter, pos) )

letter_position('E')
letter_position('f')
letter_position('a')
letter_position('Z')
letter_position('8')  # a number gives no response

Last edited by vegaseat; Oct 18th, 2009 at 5:22 pm.

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Oct 19th, 2009

Re: letters to numbers

That's the one I needed! thanks

Kruptein

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