Programming Riddle: How might you translate an Excel column name to a number?

Question

I was recently asked in a job interview to resolve a programming puzzle that I thought it would be interesting to share. It\'s about translating Excel column letters to actu

Answer 1

Here's a CFML one:

<cffunction name="ColToNum" returntype="Numeric">
    <cfargument name="Input" type="String" />
    <cfset var Total = 0 />
    <cfset var Pos = 0 />

    <cfloop index="Pos" from="1" to="#Len(Arguments.Input)#">
        <cfset Total += 26^(Pos-1) * ( Asc( UCase( Mid(Arguments.Input,Pos,1) ) ) - 64 ) />
    </cfloop>

    <cfreturn Total />
</cffunction>

<cfoutput>
    #ColToNum('AABCCE')#
</cfoutput>

And because I'm in an odd mood, here's a CFScript version:

function ColToNum ( Input )
{
    var Total = 0;

    for ( var Pos = 1 ; Pos <= Len(Arguments.Input) ; Pos++ )
    {
        Total += 26^(Pos-1) * ( Asc( UCase( Mid(Arguments.Input,Pos,1) ) ) - 64 );
    }

    return Total;
}

WriteOutput( ColToNum('AABCCE') );

Answer 2

Sounds like a standard reduce to me:

Python:

def excel2num(x): 
    return reduce(lambda s,a:s*26+ord(a)-ord('A')+1, x, 0)

C#:

int ExcelToNumber(string x) {
    return x.Aggregate(0, (s, c) => s * 26 + c - 'A' + 1 );
}

Answer 3

Hah - written it already in our code base - about 3 different times :(

%% @doc Convert an string to a decimal integer
%% @spec b26_to_i(string()) -> integer()

b26_to_i(List) when is_list(List) ->
    b26_to_i(string:to_lower(lists:reverse(List)),0,0).

%% private functions
b26_to_i([], _Power, Value) -> 
    Value;

b26_to_i([H|T],Power,Value)->
    NewValue = case (H > 96) andalso (H < 123) of
                   true ->
                       round((H - 96) * math:pow(26, Power));
                   _    ->
                       exit([H | T] ++ " is not a valid base 26 number")
               end,
    b26_to_i(T, Power + 1, NewValue + Value).

The riddle is that it isn't actually a Base26 representation of a number (we are lying to ourselves in our function name here) because there is no 0 in it.

The sequence is: A, B, C ... Z, AA, AB, AC

and not: A, B, C ...Z, BA, BB, BC

(the language is Erlang, mais oui).

Answer 4

Easy Java solution -->

public class ColumnName {

public static int colIndex(String col)
{   int index=0;
    int mul=0;
    for(int i=col.length()-1;i>=0;i--)
    {   
        index  += (col.charAt(i)-64) * Math.pow(26, mul);
        mul++;
    }
    return index;
}

public static void main(String[] args) {

    System.out.println(colIndex("AAA"));

}

Answer 5

Get a column name from an int in Java(read more here):

public String getColName (int colNum) {

   String res = "";

   int quot = colNum;
   int rem;        
    /*1. Subtract one from number.
    *2. Save the mod 26 value.
   *3. Divide the number by 26, save result.
   *4. Convert the remainder to a letter.
   *5. Repeat until the number is zero.
   *6. Return that bitch...
   */
    while(quot > 0)
    {
        quot = quot - 1;
        rem = quot % 26;
        quot = quot / 26;

        //cast to a char and add to the beginning of the string
        //add 97 to convert to the correct ascii number
        res = (char)(rem+97) + res;            
    }   
    return res;
}

Answer 6

This is basically a number in base 26, with the difference that the number doesn't use 0-9 and then letters but only letters.