PHP range() from A to ZZ?

Question

Is it possible to get a range with PHP from A to ZZ*?

a b c ... aa ... zx zy zz

For me this didn\'t work:

range(\'A\', \'ZZ\');

Answer 1

I use alpha2num() to convert alpha to number and then use it in loop. With this I can get the range using any value for the start and end.

// to convert alpha to number
function alpha2num($a) {
    $l = strlen($a);
    $n = 0;
    for($i = 0; $i < $l; $i++)
        $n = $n*26 + ord($a[$i]) - 0x40;

    return $n-1;
}

// to convert number back to alpha
function num2alpha($n)
{
    for($r = ""; $n >= 0; $n = intval($n / 26) - 1)
    $r = chr($n%26 + 0x41) . $r;
    return $r;
}

function get_range($start_column, $end_column)
{
    $s = alpha2num($start_column); // get start number
    $e = alpha2num($end_column); // get end num

    $columns = array();

    // loop from start to end and change back the number to alpha to be stored in array
    for($i=$s; $i<=$e; $i++)
        $columns[] = num2alpha($i);

    return $columns;
}

// usage
$columns = get_range('Z', 'BA'));