Convert an excel or spreadsheet column letter to its number in Pythonic fashion

Question

Is there a more pythonic way of converting excel-style columns to numbers (starting with 1)?

Working code up to two letters:

Answer 1

I'm not sure I understand properly, do you want to "translate" the referenced C# code to python? If so, you were on the right track; just modify it so:

def column_to_number(c):
  """Return number corresponding to excel-style column."""
  sum = 0
  for l in c:
    if not l in string.ascii_letters:
      return False
    sum*=26
    sum+=ord(l.upper())-64
  return sum