Getting the ASCII value of a character

In my script I need to find out the ASCII-value of a character. I have seen scripts where they define a string like " !"#$%...]~" and use getindex to find the value. That is an utterly ugly solution!
Isn't there a better way?

There's no LSL function to do it. So, you have to build the list in numerical order, and calculate based on the index of your character within that list.

Only other way I can think is to script a web applet and use your script to httprequest to your applet when a lookup is needed.

Hehehe, cool! Thank you.
No, I don't think I will do that.

I just can't stand it to know the right combination of bits is present in the computer and I still have to use tricks like this to get at them.

On the bright side: If I would ever want to convert a character to its EBCDIC-code I would only have to put the search string in a different order.

Try this, only works for printabel ascii

string characters = " !\"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~";


integer Asc(string str)
{
    string s = llGetSubString(str,0,0)
    integer index = llSubStringIndex(characters, s);
    if(index >= 0) index += 32;
    
    return index;
}

string Chr(integer val)
{
    integer len = llStringLength(characters);
    integer index = val - 32;
    if( (index >= 0) && (index <= len )
    {
        return llGetSubString(characters,index,index);
    }
    else 
        return "";
}