an inverse to the address() function?

[Dan Drake <drake lemongecko org>]

I need an inverse to the address() function. What I'd like to have is
something like the following:

    Enter a column: AA___
    Column number:  27___ 

I want to type in a column name and have the cell below it automatically
return the column number. For single letter columns, "code(upper(@ref)) - 64"
does what I want, but for two-letter columns, the string handling would be
unpleasant.

The address() function will go from numbers to an A1-style reference, but I
need the reverse. I've tried various combinations of column() and
indirect() but haven't been able to get it to work.

I need a numeric column reference for use with the offset() function
elsewhere.

Is there an easy way I can do this? I'm using Gnumeric 1.0.12.

Thanks a lot,

Dan

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-----                          Dan Drake <drake lemongecko org>
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