Kristin,

The expression (assuming Version 9):

indexc (compress (put (collate (0,255), $256.),,"lk"), letter)

where LETTER is a 1-byte variable containing your lowcase letter will return each letter's lexicographic sequence starting with 1 regardless of the operating system's collating sequence (i.e. irrespective of ASCII or EBCDIC). To check, run the step below and observe the log:

data _null_ ; lowcase = compress (put (collate (0,255), $256.),,"lk") ; do i = 1 to 26 ; letter = char (lowcase, i) ; n = indexc (compress (put (collate (0,255), $256.),,"lk"), letter) ; put letter n 2.-R ; end ; run ;

An advantage of having V9 under the belt and using the relatively complex expression above is that you do not depend on [mis]typing the string "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz". Of course, if this is a non-issue, then the primitive expression

indexc ("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz", letter)

works under any version, at least from 6 to 9, and any collating sequence.

Kind regards ------------ Paul Dorfman Jax, FL ------------

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:04:19 -0400, Kristin Graves <gravesk@CONED.COM> wrote:

>Is there a function that translates the (English) alphabet into the order >of the letters, i.e., a=1, b=2, c=3, etc? > >thanks, >Kristin Graves