Get alphabetical number of characters in string

Question

Given a string such as "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz", how would I go about returning a list of the alphabetical number of each letter in the string, example being 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 etc.?

Answer 1

1 - First@ToCharacterCode@"a" + ToCharacterCode@"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"

{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26}

Answer 2

str = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"

p = StringPartition[str, 1]

{"a", "b", "c", etc.}

ord = Rule @@@ Transpose @ {Alphabet[], Range[Length@Alphabet[]]}

{"a" -> 1, "b" -> 2, "c" -> 3, etc.}

p /. rule

{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26}