C Exercises: Get the column number that corresponds to a column title as appear in an Excel sheet

Last update on August 07 2025 12:49:20 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

9. Excel Column Number Variants

Write a C program to get the column number (integer value) that corresponds to a column title as it appears in an Excel sheet.

For example:
A -> 1
B -> 2
C -> 3
...
Z -> 26
AA -> 27
AB -> 28
...

Example:
Input:
col_title1[ ] ="C"
col_title2[ ] ="AC"
col_title3[ ] ="ZY"
Output:
Corresponding number: 3
Corresponding number: 29
Corresponding number: 701

Visual Presentation:

Sample Solution:

C Code:

#include <stdio.h>

// Function to convert an Excel column title to a corresponding number
int excel_title_to_Number(char* s) {
    int k = 0;

    // Loop to convert Excel column title to a number
    while (s && *s) {
        k = k * 26 + (*s) - 'A' + 1; // Convert each character to its corresponding value in Excel column naming scheme
        s++; // Move to the next character in the title
    }
    return k; // Return the corresponding number
}

// Main function to test the excel_title_to_Number function with different titles
int main(void) {
    char col_title1[] = "C";
    printf("\nExcel column title: = %s", col_title1);
    printf("\nCorresponding number: %d ", excel_title_to_Number(col_title1)); // Display the corresponding number for the title
    char col_title2[] = "AC";
    printf("\n\nExcel column title: = %s", col_title2);
    printf("\nCorresponding number: %d ", excel_title_to_Number(col_title2)); // Display the corresponding number for the title
    char col_title3[] = "ZY";
    printf("\n\nExcel column title: = %s", col_title3);
    printf("\nCorresponding number: %d ", excel_title_to_Number(col_title3)); // Display the corresponding number for the title
    return 0;
}

Sample Output:

Excel column title: = C
Corresponding number: 3 

Excel column title: = AC
Corresponding number: 29 

Excel column title: = ZY
Corresponding number: 701 

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

• Write a C program to convert an Excel column title into its corresponding column number using iterative calculation.
• Write a C program to reverse the Excel title-to-number conversion and verify the original title.
• Write a C program to compute the column number from a title using recursion and character arithmetic.
• Write a C program to handle invalid Excel column titles and return an error message for incorrect input.

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