From: bbiker <renard@...>
Date: 2007-06-08T03:00:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Mutually-Recursive Functions

On Jun 7, 8:07 am, "Harry Kakueki" <list.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/7/07, Harry Kakueki <list.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 6/7/07, dbl...@wobblini.net <dbl...@wobblini.net> wrote:
>
> > > Work-saving tip for the day:
>
> > >    p [*"a".."ff"]
>
> > > :-)
>
> > > David
>
> > > --
> > > Q. What is THE Ruby book for Rails developers?
> > > A. RUBY FOR RAILS by David A. Black (http://www.manning.com/black)
> > >     (See what readers are saying!  http://www.rubypal.com/r4rrevs.pdf)
> > > Q. Where can I get Ruby/Rails on-site training, consulting, coaching?
> > > A. Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypal.com)
>
> > I was going to do this.
>
> > p ("a".."ff").each {|x| p x}
>
> > Harry
>
> Oops.
> Don't need 2 p's.
>
> ("a".."ff").each {|x| p x}
>
> Harry
>
> --
>
> A Look into Japanese Ruby List in Englishhttp://www.kakueki.com/- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

I am not exactly sure what the OP was trying to do .. except that it
has to do with Columns in Excel. It does seems to me to be fairly
complicated. If this off topic, please excuse.

In Excel, columns may either have a numeric format or an alpha
format.  Columns range for 1 .. 255 (A .. IV). Since I do quite a bit
of work using Excel from Ruby via WIN32OLE, I have written a couple of
helper functions to convert a numeric column value to an alpha column
value and vice versa. Note that alpha columns in Excel are all caps.

Here they are, I hope that someone might find them useful.

# method to convert from numeric column to alpha col
# accepts numeric column 1 through 256
# returns alpha column A through IV
# returns empty string on invalid input
def n2a_col(num_col)

	# verify that it in the range of 1 to 255
	return nil if num_col < 1 || num_col > 256

	mostSD = num_col / 26  # SD = Significant Digit
	leastSD = num_col % 26

	if leastSD == 0
		mostSD -= 1
		leastSD = 26
	end

	leastSA = ('A'[0] + leastSD - 1 ).chr
	mostSA  = mostSD > 0 ? ('A'[0] + mostSD - 1).chr : ''

  mostSA + leastSA
end

# method to convert from alpha column to numeric col
# accepts alpha column A through IV
# returns numeric column 1 through 255
# returns 0 on invalid input
def a2n_col(alpha_col)
	# to uppercase
	alpha_col.upcase

	col_size = alpha_col.size

	case col_size
	when 1
    return 0  if alpha_col < 'A' || alpha_col > 'Z'
		return alpha_col[0] - 'A'[0] + 1
	when 2
		return 0 if alpha_col < 'AA' || alpha_col > 'IV'
		return (alpha_col[0] - 'A'[0] + 1) * 26 + alpha_col[1] - 'A'[0] + 1
	else
		return 0
	end
end