577

How do you convert a numerical number to an Excel column name in C# without using automation getting the value directly from Excel.

Excel 2007 has a possible range of 1 to 16384, which is the number of columns that it supports. The resulting values should be in the form of excel column names, e.g. A, AA, AAA etc.

6
  • 3
    Not forgetting that there are limits in the number of columns available. E.g. * Excel 2003 (v11) goes up to IV, 2^8 or 256 columns). * Excel 2007 (v12) goes up to XFD, 2^14 or 16384 columns. Commented Oct 8, 2008 at 8:34
  • 1
    possible duplicate of How do I find the Excel column name that corresponds to a given integer? Commented Jun 19, 2013 at 14:47
  • This question is tagged C# and excel. I flag this question as outdated, because we live in 2016 and there is EPPLUS. A commonly used C# library to create advanced Excel spreadsheets on the server. Which is made available under: GNU Library General Public License (LGPL). Using EPPlus you can easily get the Column string. Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 9:42
  • Note that the row and column limits depend more on the file format than the Excel version, and can be different for each workbook. They can change even for the same workbook if it is saved to older or newer format. Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 19:45
  • @Tony_KiloPapaMikeGolf I don't think this is outdated. In fact, EPPLUS have changed their licensing, which may not be suitable to all for a variety of reasons. Also, why bring in a library if all you need is something this simple? I'm exporting data in Excel format using OpenXML and I've only needed a couple of algorithms like what is asked here. Why add a library to the mix? Needs vary. The question is not outdated and is relevant for simple use cases. That said, EPPLUS is a pretty cool library. ;) Commented Jun 22, 2020 at 13:07

60 Answers 60

1086

Here's how I do it:

private string GetExcelColumnName(int columnNumber)
{
    string columnName = "";

    while (columnNumber > 0)
    {
        int modulo = (columnNumber - 1) % 26;
        columnName = Convert.ToChar('A' + modulo) + columnName;
        columnNumber = (columnNumber - modulo) / 26;
    } 

    return columnName;
}
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16 Comments

This code works well. It assumes Column A is columnNumber 1. I had to make a quick change to account for my system using Column A as columnNumber 0. I changed the line int dividend to int dividend = columnNumber + 1; Keith
@Jduv just tried it out using StringBuilder. It takes about twice as long. It's a very short string (max 3 characters - Excel 2010 goes up to column XFD), so maximum of 2 string concatenations. (I used 100 iterations of translating the integers 1 to 16384, i.e. Excel columns A to XFD, as the test).
Just about to write this myself, glad I checked, this is more elegant then what I was thinking about doing.
I think it would be better to use 'A' instead of 65. And 26 could be evaluated as ('Z' - 'A' + 1), for example: const int AlphabetLength = 'Z' - 'A' + 1;
Though I am late to the game, the code is far from being optimal.Particularly, you don't have to use the modulo, call ToString() and apply (int) cast. Considering that in most cases in C# world you would start numbering from 0, here is my revision: <!-- language: c# --> public static string GetColumnName(int index) // zero-based { const byte BASE = 'Z' - 'A' + 1; string name = String.Empty; do { name = Convert.ToChar('A' + index % BASE) + name; index = index / BASE - 1; } while (index >= 0); return name; }
|
69

If anyone needs to do this in Excel without VBA, here is a way:

=SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(1;colNum;4);"1";"")

where colNum is the column number

And in VBA:

Function GetColumnName(colNum As Integer) As String
    Dim d As Integer
    Dim m As Integer
    Dim name As String
    d = colNum
    name = ""
    Do While (d > 0)
        m = (d - 1) Mod 26
        name = Chr(65 + m) + name
        d = Int((d - m) / 26)
    Loop
    GetColumnName = name
End Function

4 Comments

Example: =SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(ADDRESS(1,1000,4),""),"1","")
Yes, I use Excel in a locale where ; is used in place of , to separate function arguments in Excel. Thanks for pointing this out.
I did this without the TEXT function. What is the purpose of the TEXT function?
@dayuloli Long time since this answer was written, you are correct, the TEXT function does not serve a purpose here. Will update the answer.
31

Sorry, this is Python instead of C#, but at least the results are correct:

def ColIdxToXlName(idx):
    if idx < 1:
        raise ValueError("Index is too small")
    result = ""
    while True:
        if idx > 26:
            idx, r = divmod(idx - 1, 26)
            result = chr(r + ord('A')) + result
        else:
            return chr(idx + ord('A') - 1) + result
    
    
for i in xrange(1, 1024):
    print "%4d : %s" % (i, ColIdxToXlName(i))

2 Comments

Yes I downVoted , don't post Python when the question is C#. And yes , more people should do this.
The title of the question does not imply C#, so many people may come here that don't exepect C#. Hence, thanks for sharing in Python!
28

You might need conversion both ways, e.g from Excel column adress like AAZ to integer and from any integer to Excel. The two methods below will do just that. Assumes 1 based indexing, first element in your "arrays" are element number 1. No limits on size here, so you can use adresses like ERROR and that would be column number 2613824 ...

public static string ColumnAdress(int col)
{
  if (col <= 26) { 
    return Convert.ToChar(col + 64).ToString();
  }
  int div = col / 26;
  int mod = col % 26;
  if (mod == 0) {mod = 26;div--;}
  return ColumnAdress(div) + ColumnAdress(mod);
}

public static int ColumnNumber(string colAdress)
{
  int[] digits = new int[colAdress.Length];
  for (int i = 0; i < colAdress.Length; ++i)
  {
    digits[i] = Convert.ToInt32(colAdress[i]) - 64;
  }
  int mul=1;int res=0;
  for (int pos = digits.Length - 1; pos >= 0; --pos)
  {
    res += digits[pos] * mul;
    mul *= 26;
  }
  return res;
}

Comments

19

Although there are already a bunch of valid answers1, none get into the theory behind it.

Excel column names are bijective base-26 representations of their number. This is quite different than an ordinary base 26 (there is no leading zero), and I really recommend reading the Wikipedia entry to grasp the differences. For example, the decimal value 702 (decomposed in 26*26 + 26) is represented in "ordinary" base 26 by 110 (i.e. 1x26^2 + 1x26^1 + 0x26^0) and in bijective base-26 by ZZ (i.e. 26x26^1 + 26x26^0).

Differences aside, bijective numeration is a positional notation, and as such we can perform conversions using an iterative (or recursive) algorithm which on each iteration finds the digit of the next position (similarly to an ordinary base conversion algorithm).

The general formula to get the digit at the last position (the one indexed 0) of the bijective base-k representation of a decimal number m is (f being the ceiling function minus 1):

m - (f(m / k) * k)

The digit at the next position (i.e. the one indexed 1) is found by applying the same formula to the result of f(m / k). We know that for the last digit (i.e. the one with the highest index) f(m / k) is 0.

This forms the basis for an iteration that finds each successive digit in bijective base-k of a decimal number. In pseudo-code it would look like this (digit() maps a decimal integer to its representation in the bijective base -- e.g. digit(1) would return A in bijective base-26):

fun conv(m)
    q = f(m / k)
    a = m - (q * k)
    if (q == 0)
        return digit(a)
    else
        return conv(q) + digit(a);

So we can translate this to C#2 to get a generic3 "conversion to bijective base-k" ToBijective() routine:

class BijectiveNumeration {
    private int baseK;
    private Func<int, char> getDigit;
    public BijectiveNumeration(int baseK, Func<int, char> getDigit) {
        this.baseK = baseK;
        this.getDigit = getDigit;
    }

    public string ToBijective(double decimalValue) {
        double q = f(decimalValue / baseK);
        double a = decimalValue - (q * baseK);
        return ((q > 0) ? ToBijective(q) : "") + getDigit((int)a);
    }

    private static double f(double i) {
        return (Math.Ceiling(i) - 1);
    }
}

Now for conversion to bijective base-26 (our "Excel column name" use case):

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    BijectiveNumeration bijBase26 = new BijectiveNumeration(
        26,
        (value) => Convert.ToChar('A' + (value - 1))
    );

    Console.WriteLine(bijBase26.ToBijective(1));     // prints "A"
    Console.WriteLine(bijBase26.ToBijective(26));    // prints "Z"
    Console.WriteLine(bijBase26.ToBijective(27));    // prints "AA"
    Console.WriteLine(bijBase26.ToBijective(702));   // prints "ZZ"
    Console.WriteLine(bijBase26.ToBijective(16384)); // prints "XFD"
}

Excel's maximum column index is 16384 / XFD, but this code will convert any positive number.

As an added bonus, we can now easily convert to any bijective base. For example for bijective base-10:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    BijectiveNumeration bijBase10 = new BijectiveNumeration(
        10,
        (value) => value < 10 ? Convert.ToChar('0'+value) : 'A'
    );

    Console.WriteLine(bijBase10.ToBijective(1));     // prints "1"
    Console.WriteLine(bijBase10.ToBijective(10));    // prints "A"
    Console.WriteLine(bijBase10.ToBijective(123));   // prints "123"
    Console.WriteLine(bijBase10.ToBijective(20));    // prints "1A"
    Console.WriteLine(bijBase10.ToBijective(100));   // prints "9A"
    Console.WriteLine(bijBase10.ToBijective(101));   // prints "A1"
    Console.WriteLine(bijBase10.ToBijective(2010));  // prints "19AA"
}

1 This generic answer can eventually be reduced to the other, correct, specific answers, but I find it hard to fully grasp the logic of the solutions without the formal theory behind bijective numeration in general. It also proves its correctness nicely. Additionally, several similar questions link back to this one, some being language-agnostic or more generic. That's why I thought the addition of this answer was warranted, and that this question was a good place to put it.

2 C# disclaimer: I implemented an example in C# because this is what is asked here, but I have never learned nor used the language. I have verified it does compile and run, but please adapt it to fit the language best practices / general conventions, if necessary.

3 This example only aims to be correct and understandable ; it could and should be optimized would performance matter (e.g. with tail-recursion -- but that seems to require trampolining in C#), and made safer (e.g. by validating parameters).

1 Comment

This answer deserves more upvotes, for providing the theory.
15

This answer is in javaScript:

function getCharFromNumber(columnNumber){
    var dividend = columnNumber;
    var columnName = "";
    var modulo;

    while (dividend > 0)
    {
        modulo = (dividend - 1) % 26;
        columnName = String.fromCharCode(65 + modulo).toString() + columnName;
        dividend = parseInt((dividend - modulo) / 26);
    } 
    return columnName;
}

byId('convertBtn').onclick = function (e) {
    e.preventDefault();
    var i = byId('num'),
        inputVal = i.value;
    
    if (inputVal == "") {
        i.style.backgroundColor = "red";
    } else {
        byId('colName').innerText = getCharFromNumber(Number(inputVal)) + '';
        i.style.backgroundColor = "#fff";
    }
}

function byId(x) {
    return document.getElementById(x);
}
<h1>Number to Excel column name. Press "Run code snippet" to try</h1>

<form name="NumToCol">Column number:
    <input name="colNum" id="num">
    <button id='convertBtn'>Convert</button>
    <br>
    <label id="colName"></label>
</form>

Comments

15

I discovered an error in my first post, so I decided to sit down and do the the math. What I found is that the number system used to identify Excel columns is not a base 26 system, as another person posted. Consider the following in base 10. You can also do this with the letters of the alphabet.

Space:.........................S1, S2, S3 : S1, S2, S3  
....................................0, 00, 000 :.. A, AA, AAA  
....................................1, 01, 001 :.. B, AB, AAB  
.................................... …, …, … :.. …, …, …  
....................................9, 99, 999 :.. Z, ZZ, ZZZ  
Total states in space:    10, 100, 1000 : 26, 676, 17576  
Total States:...............1110................18278

Excel numbers columns in the individual alphabetical spaces using base 26. You can see that in general, the state space progression is a, a2, a3, … for some base a, and the total number of states is a + a2 + a3 + … .

Suppose you want to find the total number of states A in the first N spaces. The formula for doing so is A = (a)(aN - 1 )/(a-1). This is important because we need to find the space N that corresponds to our index K. If I want to find out where K lies in the number system I need to replace A with K and solve for N. The solution is N = loga(A (a-1)/a +1). If I use the example of a = 10 and K = 192, I know that N = 2.23804… This tells me that K lies at the beginning of the third space since it is a little greater than two.

The next step is to find exactly how far in the current space we are. To find this, subtract from K the A generated using the floor of N. In this example, the floor of N is two. So, A = (10)(102 – 1)/(10-1) = 110, as is expected when you combine the states of the first two spaces. This needs to be subtracted from K because these first 110 states would have already been accounted for in the first two spaces. This leaves us with 82 states. So, in this number system, the representation of 192 in base 10 is 082.

The C# code using a base index of zero is

    private string ExcelColumnIndexToName(int Index)
    {
        string range = string.Empty;
        if (Index < 0 ) return range;
        int a = 26;
        int x = (int)Math.Floor(Math.Log((Index) * (a - 1) / a + 1, a));
        Index -= (int)(Math.Pow(a, x) - 1) * a / (a - 1);
        for (int i = x+1; Index + i > 0; i--)
        {
            range = ((char)(65 + Index % a)).ToString() + range;
            Index /= a;
        }
        return range;
    }

//Old Post

A zero-based solution in C#.

    private string ExcelColumnIndexToName(int Index)
    {
        string range = "";
        if (Index < 0 ) return range;
        for(int i=1;Index + i > 0;i=0)
        {
            range = ((char)(65 + Index % 26)).ToString() + range;
            Index /= 26;
        }
        if (range.Length > 1) range = ((char)((int)range[0] - 1)).ToString() + range.Substring(1);
        return range;
    }

2 Comments

ooh i don't know why but i like this solution. Nothing fancy just good use of logic... easily readable code for levels of programmer. One thing though, I believe its best practise to specify an empty string in C# as string range = string.Empty;
Yes, very nice explanation. But could you also just state that it is not base 27 either? Your explanation shows this when studied, but a quick mention at the top may save a few other people some time.
11
int nCol = 127;
string sChars = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
string sCol = "";
while (nCol >= 26)
{
    int nChar = nCol % 26;
    nCol = (nCol - nChar) / 26;
    // You could do some trick with using nChar as offset from 'A', but I am lazy to do it right now.
    sCol = sChars[nChar] + sCol;
}
sCol = sChars[nCol] + sCol;

Update: Peter's comment is right. That's what I get for writing code in the browser. :-) My solution was not compiling, it was missing the left-most letter and it was building the string in reverse order - all now fixed.

Bugs aside, the algorithm is basically converting a number from base 10 to base 26.

Update 2: Joel Coehoorn is right - the code above will return AB for 27. If it was real base 26 number, AA would be equal to A and the next number after Z would be BA.

int nCol = 127;
string sChars = "0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
string sCol = "";
while (nCol > 26)
{
    int nChar = nCol % 26;
    if (nChar == 0)
        nChar = 26;
    nCol = (nCol - nChar) / 26;
    sCol = sChars[nChar] + sCol;
}
if (nCol != 0)
    sCol = sChars[nCol] + sCol;

3 Comments

Code will not compile (sCol not initialized). If it does, it will not give the right answer.
THIS ANSWER IS WRONG. Base26 isn't good enough. Think about what happens when your wrap from Z to AA. If A is equivalent to the 0 digit, then it's like wraping from 9 to 00. If it's the 1 digits, it's like wrapping from 9 to 11.
I'm not clear after the updates... is either of the algorithms now correct? And if so, which one, the second one? I'd edit this and make it obvious for posterity....
11

Easy with recursion.

public static string GetStandardExcelColumnName(int columnNumberOneBased)
{
  int baseValue = Convert.ToInt32('A');
  int columnNumberZeroBased = columnNumberOneBased - 1;

  string ret = "";

  if (columnNumberOneBased > 26)
  {
    ret = GetStandardExcelColumnName(columnNumberZeroBased / 26) ;
  }

  return ret + Convert.ToChar(baseValue + (columnNumberZeroBased % 26) );
}

4 Comments

.. or a loop. There's no real reason to use recursion here.
It's not just base 26, so the recursive solution is much simpler.
This routine does not actually work. For example GetStandardExcelColumnName(26) returns @ GetStandardExcelColumnName(52) returns B@
the clearest as opposed to the "simplest" solution is the best.
11

I'm surprised all of the solutions so far contain either iteration or recursion.

Here's my solution that runs in constant time (no loops). This solution works for all possible Excel columns and checks that the input can be turned into an Excel column. Possible columns are in the range [A, XFD] or [1, 16384]. (This is dependent on your version of Excel)

private static string Turn(uint col)
{
    if (col < 1 || col > 16384) //Excel columns are one-based (one = 'A')
        throw new ArgumentException("col must be >= 1 and <= 16384");

    if (col <= 26) //one character
        return ((char)(col + 'A' - 1)).ToString();

    else if (col <= 702) //two characters
    {
        char firstChar = (char)((int)((col - 1) / 26) + 'A' - 1);
        char secondChar = (char)(col % 26 + 'A' - 1);

        if (secondChar == '@') //Excel is one-based, but modulo operations are zero-based
            secondChar = 'Z'; //convert one-based to zero-based

        return string.Format("{0}{1}", firstChar, secondChar);
    }

    else //three characters
    {
        char firstChar = (char)((int)((col - 1) / 702) + 'A' - 1);
        char secondChar = (char)((col - 1) / 26 % 26 + 'A' - 1);
        char thirdChar = (char)(col % 26 + 'A' - 1);

        if (thirdChar == '@') //Excel is one-based, but modulo operations are zero-based
            thirdChar = 'Z'; //convert one-based to zero-based

        return string.Format("{0}{1}{2}", firstChar, secondChar, thirdChar);
    }
}

9 Comments

FYI: @Graham's answer (and probably the others) are more general than yours: they support 4+ characters in the column names. And that's precisely why they are iterative.
In fact, if they used unlimited integers and not ints, the resulting column name could be arbitrarily long (that's the case of the python answer, for instance)
If my data is ever too large for a 16,384-column spreadsheet, I'll shoot myself in the head. Anyways, Excel doesn't even support all of the possible three-letter columns (it cuts off at XFD leaving out 1,894 columns). Right now anyways. I'll update my answer in the future as required.
:) didn't knew that! My comment was on the theoretical properties of the different algorithms.
This one is probably the simplest and clearest solution.
|
11

... And converted to php:

function GetExcelColumnName($columnNumber) {
    $columnName = '';
    while ($columnNumber > 0) {
        $modulo = ($columnNumber - 1) % 26;
        $columnName = chr(65 + $modulo) . $columnName;
        $columnNumber = (int)(($columnNumber - $modulo) / 26);
    }
    return $columnName;
}

1 Comment

Use ord('A') instead of 65.
10

Just throwing in a simple two-line C# implementation using recursion, because all the answers here seem far more complicated than necessary.

/// <summary>
/// Gets the column letter(s) corresponding to the given column number.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="column">The one-based column index. Must be greater than zero.</param>
/// <returns>The desired column letter, or an empty string if the column number was invalid.</returns>
public static string GetColumnLetter(int column) {
    if (column < 1) return String.Empty;
    return GetColumnLetter((column - 1) / 26) + (char)('A' + (column - 1) % 26);
}

Comments

10

Same implementation in Java

public String getExcelColumnName (int columnNumber) 
    {     
        int dividend = columnNumber;   
        int i;
        String columnName = "";     
        int modulo;     
        while (dividend > 0)     
        {        
            modulo = (dividend - 1) % 26;         
            i = 65 + modulo;
            columnName = new Character((char)i).toString() + columnName;        
            dividend = (int)((dividend - modulo) / 26);    
        }       
        return columnName; 
    }  

Comments

7

I wanted to throw in my static class I use, for interoping between col index and col Label. I use a modified accepted answer for my ColumnLabel Method

public static class Extensions
{
    public static string ColumnLabel(this int col)
    {
        var dividend = col;
        var columnLabel = string.Empty;
        int modulo;

        while (dividend > 0)
        {
            modulo = (dividend - 1) % 26;
            columnLabel = Convert.ToChar(65 + modulo).ToString() + columnLabel;
            dividend = (int)((dividend - modulo) / 26);
        } 

        return columnLabel;
    }
    public static int ColumnIndex(this string colLabel)
    {
        // "AD" (1 * 26^1) + (4 * 26^0) ...
        var colIndex = 0;
        for(int ind = 0, pow = colLabel.Count()-1; ind < colLabel.Count(); ++ind, --pow)
        {
            var cVal = Convert.ToInt32(colLabel[ind]) - 64; //col A is index 1
            colIndex += cVal * ((int)Math.Pow(26, pow));
        }
        return colIndex;
    }
}

Use this like...

30.ColumnLabel(); // "AD"
"AD".ColumnIndex(); // 30

Comments

5
private String getColumn(int c) {
    String s = "";
    do {
        s = (char)('A' + (c % 26)) + s;
        c /= 26;
    } while (c-- > 0);
    return s;
}

Its not exactly base 26, there is no 0 in the system. If there was, 'Z' would be followed by 'BA' not by 'AA'.

Comments

5

if you just want it for a cell formula without code, here's a formula for it:

IF(COLUMN()>=26,CHAR(ROUND(COLUMN()/26,1)+64)&CHAR(MOD(COLUMN(),26)+64),CHAR(COLUMN()+64))

Comments

5

In Delphi (Pascal):

function GetExcelColumnName(columnNumber: integer): string;
var
  dividend, modulo: integer;
begin
  Result := '';
  dividend := columnNumber;
  while dividend > 0 do begin
    modulo := (dividend - 1) mod 26;
    Result := Chr(65 + modulo) + Result;
    dividend := (dividend - modulo) div 26;
  end;
end;

Comments

4

A little late to the game, but here's the code I use (in C#):

private static readonly string _Alphabet = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
public static int ColumnNameParse(string value)
{
    // assumes value.Length is [1,3]
    // assumes value is uppercase
    var digits = value.PadLeft(3).Select(x => _Alphabet.IndexOf(x));
    return digits.Aggregate(0, (current, index) => (current * 26) + (index + 1));
}

2 Comments

You did the inverse of what was asked, but +1 for your lambda-fu.
IndexOf is quite slow, you'd better precalcuate the reverse mapping.
4

In perl, for an input of 1 (A), 27 (AA), etc.

sub excel_colname {
  my ($idx) = @_;       # one-based column number
  --$idx;               # zero-based column index
  my $name = "";
  while ($idx >= 0) {
    $name .= chr(ord("A") + ($idx % 26));
    $idx   = int($idx / 26) - 1;
  }
  return scalar reverse $name;
}

Comments

3

Though I am late to the game, Graham's answer is far from being optimal. Particularly, you don't have to use the modulo, call ToString() and apply (int) cast. Considering that in most cases in C# world you would start numbering from 0, here is my revision:

public static string GetColumnName(int index) // zero-based
{
    const byte BASE = 'Z' - 'A' + 1;
    string name = String.Empty;

    do
    {
        name = Convert.ToChar('A' + index % BASE) + name;
        index = index / BASE - 1;
    }
    while (index >= 0);

    return name;
}

1 Comment

This seems to have the same two mathematical operations in the body of the loop as Graham's answer
3

For what it is worth, here is Graham's code in Powershell:

function ConvertTo-ExcelColumnID {
    param (
        [parameter(Position = 0,
            HelpMessage = "A 1-based index to convert to an excel column ID. e.g. 2 => 'B', 29 => 'AC'",
            Mandatory = $true)]
        [int]$index
    );

    [string]$result = '';
    if ($index -le 0 ) {
        return $result;
    }

    while ($index -gt 0) {
        [int]$modulo = ($index - 1) % 26;
        $character = [char]($modulo + [int][char]'A');
        $result = $character + $result;
        [int]$index = ($index - $modulo) / 26;
    }

    return $result;
}

Comments

3

After looking at all the supplied Versions here, I decided to do one myself, using recursion.

Here is my vb.net Version:

Function CL(ByVal x As Integer) As String
    If x >= 1 And x <= 26 Then
        CL = Chr(x + 64)
    Else
        CL = CL((x - x Mod 26) / 26) & Chr((x Mod 26) + 1 + 64)
    End If
End Function

1 Comment

This is wrong. 27 => AB instead of AA, 105 => DB instead of DA etc.
2

Refining the original solution (in C#):

public static class ExcelHelper
{
    private static Dictionary<UInt16, String> l_DictionaryOfColumns;

    public static ExcelHelper() {
        l_DictionaryOfColumns = new Dictionary<ushort, string>(256);
    }

    public static String GetExcelColumnName(UInt16 l_Column)
    {
        UInt16 l_ColumnCopy = l_Column;
        String l_Chars = "0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
        String l_rVal = "";
        UInt16 l_Char;


        if (l_DictionaryOfColumns.ContainsKey(l_Column) == true)
        {
            l_rVal = l_DictionaryOfColumns[l_Column];
        }
        else
        {
            while (l_ColumnCopy > 26)
            {
                l_Char = l_ColumnCopy % 26;
                if (l_Char == 0)
                    l_Char = 26;

                l_ColumnCopy = (l_ColumnCopy - l_Char) / 26;
                l_rVal = l_Chars[l_Char] + l_rVal;
            }
            if (l_ColumnCopy != 0)
                l_rVal = l_Chars[l_ColumnCopy] + l_rVal;

            l_DictionaryOfColumns.ContainsKey(l_Column) = l_rVal;
        }

        return l_rVal;
    }
}

Comments

2

Here is an Actionscript version:

private var columnNumbers:Array = ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F' , 'G', 'H', 'I', 'J', 'K' ,'L','M','N','O','P','Q','R','S','T','U','V','W','X','Y','Z'];

    private function getExcelColumnName(columnNumber:int) : String{
        var dividend:int = columnNumber;
        var columnName:String = "";
        var modulo:int;

        while (dividend > 0)
        {
            modulo = (dividend - 1) % 26;
            columnName = columnNumbers[modulo] + columnName;
            dividend = int((dividend - modulo) / 26);
        } 

        return columnName;
    }

Comments

2

These my codes to convert specific number (index start from 1) to Excel Column.

    public static string NumberToExcelColumn(uint number)
    {
        uint originalNumber = number;

        uint numChars = 1;
        while (Math.Pow(26, numChars) < number)
        {
            numChars++;

            if (Math.Pow(26, numChars) + 26 >= number)
            {
                break;
            }               
        }

        string toRet = "";
        uint lastValue = 0;

        do
        {
            number -= lastValue;

            double powerVal = Math.Pow(26, numChars - 1);
            byte thisCharIdx = (byte)Math.Truncate((columnNumber - 1) / powerVal);
            lastValue = (int)powerVal * thisCharIdx;

            if (numChars - 2 >= 0)
            {
                double powerVal_next = Math.Pow(26, numChars - 2);
                byte thisCharIdx_next = (byte)Math.Truncate((columnNumber - lastValue - 1) / powerVal_next);
                int lastValue_next = (int)Math.Pow(26, numChars - 2) * thisCharIdx_next;

                if (thisCharIdx_next == 0 && lastValue_next == 0 && powerVal_next == 26)
                {
                    thisCharIdx--;
                    lastValue = (int)powerVal * thisCharIdx;
                }
            }

            toRet += (char)((byte)'A' + thisCharIdx + ((numChars > 1) ? -1 : 0));

            numChars--;
        } while (numChars > 0);

        return toRet;
    }

My Unit Test:

    [TestMethod]
    public void Test()
    {
        Assert.AreEqual("A", NumberToExcelColumn(1));
        Assert.AreEqual("Z", NumberToExcelColumn(26));
        Assert.AreEqual("AA", NumberToExcelColumn(27));
        Assert.AreEqual("AO", NumberToExcelColumn(41));
        Assert.AreEqual("AZ", NumberToExcelColumn(52));
        Assert.AreEqual("BA", NumberToExcelColumn(53));
        Assert.AreEqual("ZZ", NumberToExcelColumn(702));
        Assert.AreEqual("AAA", NumberToExcelColumn(703));
        Assert.AreEqual("ABC", NumberToExcelColumn(731));
        Assert.AreEqual("ACQ", NumberToExcelColumn(771));
        Assert.AreEqual("AYZ", NumberToExcelColumn(1352));
        Assert.AreEqual("AZA", NumberToExcelColumn(1353));
        Assert.AreEqual("AZB", NumberToExcelColumn(1354));
        Assert.AreEqual("BAA", NumberToExcelColumn(1379));
        Assert.AreEqual("CNU", NumberToExcelColumn(2413));
        Assert.AreEqual("GCM", NumberToExcelColumn(4823));
        Assert.AreEqual("MSR", NumberToExcelColumn(9300));
        Assert.AreEqual("OMB", NumberToExcelColumn(10480));
        Assert.AreEqual("ULV", NumberToExcelColumn(14530));
        Assert.AreEqual("XFD", NumberToExcelColumn(16384));
    }

1 Comment

+1 for showing what the maximum cell reference is in your tests (XFD) - you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to find that info on the web.
2

More than 30 solutions already, but here's my one-line C# solution...

public string IntToExcelColumn(int i)
{
    return ((i<16926? "" : ((char)((((i/26)-1)%26)+65)).ToString()) + (i<2730? "" : ((char)((((i/26)-1)%26)+65)).ToString()) + (i<26? "" : ((char)((((i/26)-1)%26)+65)).ToString()) + ((char)((i%26)+65)));
}

1 Comment

And by far the least readable one. What's the reason for those magic numbers in there? You might want to explain this...
2

Another VBA way

Public Function GetColumnName(TargetCell As Range) As String
    GetColumnName = Split(CStr(TargetCell.Cells(1, 1).Address), "$")(1)
End Function

Comments

2

Sorry, this is Python instead of C#, but at least the results are correct:

def excel_column_number_to_name(column_number):
    output = ""
    index = column_number-1
    while index >= 0:
        character = chr((index%26)+ord('A'))
        output = output + character
        index = index/26 - 1
                    
    return output[::-1]


for i in xrange(1, 1024):
    print "%4d : %s" % (i, excel_column_number_to_name(i))

Passed these test cases:

  • Column Number: 494286 => ABCDZ
  • Column Number: 27 => AA
  • Column Number: 52 => AZ

Comments

2

JavaScript Solution

/**
 * Calculate the column letter abbreviation from a 1 based index
 * @param {Number} value
 * @returns {string}
 */
getColumnFromIndex = function (value) {
    var base = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'.split('');
    var remainder, result = "";
    do {
        remainder = value % 26;
        result = base[(remainder || 26) - 1] + result;
        value = Math.floor(value / 26);
    } while (value > 0);
    return result;
};

console.log(getColumnFromIndex(1), "A");
console.log(getColumnFromIndex(26), "Z");
console.log(getColumnFromIndex(27), "AA");
console.log(getColumnFromIndex(52), "AZ");
console.log(getColumnFromIndex(53), "BA");
console.log(getColumnFromIndex(702), "ZZ");
console.log(getColumnFromIndex(703), "AAA");
console.log(getColumnFromIndex(704), "AAB");
console.log(getColumnFromIndex(16384), "XFD");

2 Comments

Try index 26 and 27. It's very close, but off by one.
value = Math.floor(value / 26); should be value = Math.ceil(value / 26) - 1;
1

This is the question all others as well as Google redirect to so I'm posting this here.

Many of these answers are correct but too cumbersome for simple situations such as when you don't have over 26 columns. If you have any doubt whether you might go into double character columns then ignore this answer, but if you're sure you won't, then you could do it as simple as this in C#:

public static char ColIndexToLetter(short index)
{
    if (index < 0 || index > 25) throw new ArgumentException("Index must be between 0 and 25.");
    return (char)('A' + index);
}

Heck, if you're confident about what you're passing in you could even remove the validation and use this inline:

(char)('A' + index)

This will be very similar in many languages so you can adapt it as needed.

Again, only use this if you're 100% sure you won't have more than 26 columns.

Comments

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