VB.NET AlphaNumeric into integer - vb.net

Question

If Textbox1.text contains a string value of ZU4, how can I convert that string to it's numeric ASCII codes, and output it to a second text box?
I'd like to do this using a FOR LOOP conditional statement which will read every character in INPUT?
Sample:
INPUT Textbox1.Text = ZU4
OUTPUT Textbox2.Text = 908552

Answer 1

You could also use LINQ:
TextBox2.Text = String.Join(String.Empty, From c In Textbox1.Text.ToCharArray Select (Asc(c).ToString))
Could be useful on some job interviews... :)

Answer 2

All of the other answers will work with your given example, however, some of the suggestions are using unicode encoding rather than ASCII. If strictly adhering to ASCII encoding is important, then you should explicitly specify the encoding that you want to use.
Convert.ToInt32 uses UTF-16 encoding. I'm not sure what CInt will do, but I suspect it works the same way. Using Asc is better, but it is still dependent on the code page setting for the thread, so it's still not entirely safe. Besides that, Asc is an old VB6 function which is provided in VB.NET, primarily for backwards compatibility.
Therefore, I would recommend using the ASCIIEncoding class instead. You can get an instance of that class using the shared ASCII property of the Encoding class in the System.Text namespace, for instance:
Public Function ConvertTextToAsciiDigits(text As String) As String
Dim builder As New StringBuilder()
For Each b As Byte In Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(text)
builder.Append(b.ToString())
Next
Return builder.ToString()
End Function
Then, you can call the function like this:
Textbox2.Text = ConvertTextToAsciiDigits(Textbox1.Text)
However, I can't imagine that the resulting string will be usable unless every character results in a two digit number. Therefore, I would force it to be two digits by doing something like this:
Public Function ConvertTextToAsciiDigits(text As String) As String
Dim builder As New StringBuilder()
For Each b As Byte In Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(text)
If b > 99 then
Throw New FormatException() ' Throws an exception if the value is three digits
End If
builder.Append(b.ToString("00")) ' Adds a leading zero to one-digit values
Next
Return builder.ToString()
End Function
To add a hyphen after every fourth digit, as you mentioned in a comment below, you could just keep track of the total digits added since the last hyphen, like this:
Public Function ConvertTextToAsciiDigits(text As String) As String
Dim builder As New StringBuilder()
Dim digitsSinceHyphen As Integer = 0
For Each b As Byte In Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(text)
If b > 99 then
Throw New FormatException()
End If
builder.Append(b.ToString("00"))
digitsSinceHyphen += 2
If digitsSinceHyphen >= 4 Then
builder.Append("-")
digitsSinceHyphen = 0
End If
Next
Return builder.ToString()
End Function

Answer 3

Here is one approach, in C#:
Textbox2.Text = string.Empty;
foreach(var c in Textbox1.Text)
{
Textbox2.Text += ((int)c).ToString();
}
VB.NET:
Textbox2.Text = String.Empty
For Each c As Char In Textbox1.Text
Textbox2.Text = Textbox2.Text + Convert.ToInt32(c).ToString()
Next
It:
Clears out Textbox2.Text
Loops over each character in the input
Concatenates the integer value output as a string to the output text

Answer 4

TextBox2.Text = ""
For i As Integer = 0 To TextBox1.TextLength - 1
TextBox2.Text += Asc(TextBox1.Text(i)).ToString()
Next

Answer 5

i modified the code from this Link
Function AsciiEncode(ByVal value As String) As String
Dim encValue As New System.Text.StringBuilder(value.Length * 6)
Dim c As Char
For Each c In value
encValue.Append(Convert.ToInt32(c))
Next
Return encValue.ToString()
End Function
usage:
Private Sub TextBox1_TextChanged(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles TextBox1.TextChanged
TextBox2.Text = AsciiEncode(TextBox1.Text)
End Sub