jQuery calculate column count from excel range

Question

I have a C# web form where a user inputs data about an excel file into a number of text boxes, including:

• TXT_FirstDataRow - integer field which represents the first row that contains data
• TXT_LastDataColumn - string field which represents the last column that contains data
• TXT_Range - string field which contains the calculated data range using the above two fields
• TXT_ColumnCount - The number of columns in the calculated range

I am currently using jQuery to automatically calculate the data range using the code below which works perfectly:

$('#TXT_FirstDataRow,#TXT_LastDataColumn').keyup(function () {

    var row = $('#TXT_FirstDataRow').val();
    var column = $('#TXT_LastDataColumn').val();
    var range = 'A' + row + ':' + column; //All ranges start at column A

    $('#TXT_Range').val(range);
});

I would now like to automatically populate the TXT_ColumnCount with the count of the columns. For example:

Range |Column Count
------+------------
A1:C  |3
A7:BX |76

I imagine that this should be made easier as the ranges will always be starting from column A, so the column count should just be the equivalent column number of TXT_LastDataColumn, but I am afraid even this is beyond my slightly limited jQuery knowledge.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

I found an answer on SO that helped me, link below:

Convert excel column alphabet (e.g. AA) to number (e.g., 25)

function letterToNumbers(string) {
    string = string.toUpperCase();
    var letters = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', sum = 0, i;
    for (i = 0; i < string.length; i++) {
        sum += Math.pow(letters.length, i) * (letters.indexOf(string.substr(((i + 1) * -1), 1)) + 1);
    }
    return sum;
}