Transforming a string of letters into number based on each value equaling a number.

If there are a finite amount of variables available for a string like... a,b,c,d,e....z, and each value is numbered 1,2,3,4,5....26, how can I write a short code to take in a string of letters like "bccddee" and get an output of "2+3+3+4+4+5+5".

I can define each letter as a number, but the 1st problem I encounter is braking up the string into a finite amount of values (7) it contains and then using a loop to go trough them inside the string and add them to the total.

Anyone know how to do this or atleast can point me towards the direction of how I can get within a letter string and convert it to numbers which then i can add?

Answer 1

[José-Luis]

 str = 'bccddee';
 result = sum(str - 'a' + 1)

[Stephen]

+1 nice and simple. Why waste time writing anything else?

Answer 2

[tban]

Well, mystring is made out of letters and length is only used for numbers, No?

Answer 3

[tban]

using this and it works, will let you know if i have any more questions

y=char('john') y =john >> length(y) ans = 4

char needs to be used.

Answer 4

[tban]

mystring=char('word')
len=length(mystring)

w=23; o=15;r=18;d=4;

total = 0;
for i = 1:length(mystring)
    if (mystring(i) == 'w')
        total = total + w;
    elseif (mystring(i) == 'o')
        total = total + o;
    elseif (mystring(i) == 'r')
        total = total + r;
    elseif (mystring(i) == 'd')
        total = total + d;
    end
end

this works

[John Chilleri]

Glad it's working, but I don't think you need to use char:

>> length('abcdef')

 ans =

     6

(works in my command window).