Getting an ASCII character code in Ruby using `?` (question mark) fails

Question

I\'m in a situation where I need the ASCII value of a character (for Project Euler question #22, if you want to get specific) and I\'m running into an issue.

Being n

Answer 1

For 1.8 and 1.9

?a.class == String ? ?a.ord : ?a

or

"a".class == String ? "a".ord : "a"[0]