String to directory number

[Phatkone]

Those of you who remember the xPT (or what ever it was) account management tool that was released here, you may have pilfered for your site, the directory number function:

function numDir($name)    
{
    $total = "";
        $character=array
        (
            "0"=>"48",            "1"=>"49",            "2"=>"50",
            "3"=>"51",            "4"=>"52",            "5"=>"53",
            "6"=>"54",            "7"=>"55",            "8"=>"56",
            "9"=>"57",            "a"=>"65",            "b"=>"66",
            "c"=>"67",            "d"=>"68",            "e"=>"69", 
           "f"=>"70",            "g"=>"71",            "h"=>"72",
            "i"=>"73",            "j"=>"74",            "k"=>"75",
            "l"=>"76",            "m"=>"77",            "n"=>"78",
            "o"=>"79",            "p"=>"80",            "q"=>"81",
            "r"=>"82",            "s"=>"83",            "t"=>"84", 
           "u"=>"85",            "v"=>"86",            "w"=>"87", 
           "x"=>"88",            "y"=>"89",            "z"=>"90", 
           "A"=>"65",            "B"=>"66",            "C"=>"67",
           "D"=>"68",            "E"=>"69",            "F"=>"70",
           "G"=>"71",            "H"=>"72",            "I"=>"73",
            "J"=>"74",            "K"=>"75",            "L"=>"76",
            "M"=>"77",            "N"=>"78",            "O"=>"79", 
           "P"=>"80",            "Q"=>"81",            "R"=>"82", 
           "S"=>"83",            "T"=>"84",            "U"=>"85", 
           "V"=>"86",            "W"=>"87",            "X"=>"88", 
           "Y"=>"89",            "Z"=>"90", 
       ); 
       for($i=0;$i<strlen($name);$i++)  {
            $total+=$character[$name[$i]];
            if($total>=256) {
                $total=$total-256;
            }
        } 
       return $total;
}

This was great, except that it didn't capture every character.
I realised it's actually much simpler than this.

the simple function:

function numDir($name)  
{    
     $total = 0;     for($i=0;$i<strlen($name);$i++) 
    {
        $total+=ord(strtoupper($name[$i]));    if($total>=256) 
        {            $total=$total-256;        }    return $total;
    }
}

All the game is doing is taking the ascii value for the character (in upper case) and doing the same maths,
I get a lot of you may be thinking "great but what use do I have for this?"

Well I use it for many things, my tools for character list, for my item distributor tool, for character management and renaming characters.

I hope some of you get some use out of this, nothing special, not a huge gift to the community but hoping it will make things a little simpler for some of you.

[MentaL]