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

Common Lisp:

(defun excel->number (string)
  "Converts an Excel column name to a column number."
  (reduce (lambda (a b) (+ (* a 26) b))
          string
          :key (lambda (x) (- (char-int x) 64))))

edit: the inverse operation:

(defun number->excel (number &optional acc)
  "Converts a column number to Excel column name."
  (if (zerop number)
      (concatenate 'string acc)
      (multiple-value-bind (rest current) (floor number 26)
        (if (zerop current)
            (number->excel (- rest 1) (cons #\Z acc))
            (number->excel rest (cons (code-char (+ current 64)) acc))))))