count letters, get a number

hey all,

i have a little question and i can't figure it out myself how to do it

here it comes

I have two names e.g. "michael" and "Michelle"

now i want construct to count the letter but not in a normal way but more like this

m = 2, i = 2, c = 2, h = 2, a = 1, e = 3, l = 3

so that it would sum it up like this:

2-2-2-2-1-3-3

And then (i don't now if it is possible but i still ask it ) i want it to count the number up like this

2-2-2-2-1-3-3

first + last, so you get 5 and again 5 and then 3 and last the 2

so you will get this

2-2-2-2-1-3-3

5-5-3-2

7-8

78

So that in the end i will have two numbers, i know it seems a little hard and that's why i don't know how to do it, and i need a little push in the good direction so i know were to start.

If someone can help me out with this i will be very gratefull

(my english isn't that good so there can be a few mistakes in my question)

In order to do this you should have a close look at the following wiki page:

SYSTEM EXPRESSIONS

That would be the needed push in the right direction for you.

Other than that I made a cap which does what you requested. Enter a name in the editbox and click the calculate button. For the letters you had in your example I assigned the same values. So calculating "Michael" will indeed give 78.

Here's the link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2306601/namevalthing.cap

And my further approach to this is to EXPLAIN NOTHING else about it. You go figure it out. That should make for about the best possible learning experience.

thanks for the quick reply and thanks for the right push

first i will look at the wiki page and if i still can't get to it i will use your example

edit:

Well i took a quick look at your example and i realize i explained my idea wrong i think, what my idea was is that you have Two names in different editboxes, and that it counts how much each letter is used,

E.g.

Michael Michelle

m is used 2 times, the i 2 times etc.

but with your example i can look more in depth of how to keep counting till there are two numbers left

edit:

Well i took a quick look at your example and i realize i explained my idea wrong i think, what my idea was is that you have Two names in different editboxes, and that it counts how much each letter is used,

E.g.

Michael Michelle

m is used 2 times, the i 2 times etc.

but with your example i can look more in depth of how to keep counting till there are two numbers left

Well yeah, you only provided an example for one name, so that's what I based my cap on. Once you understand it you can adapt the method to handle as many names as you like though.