Find Excel column name from a given column number

MS Excel columns has a pattern like A, B, C, … ,Z, AA, AB, AC,…. ,AZ, BA, BB, … ZZ, AAA, AAB ….. etc. In other words, column 1 is named as “A”, column 2 as “B”, column 27 as “AA”.

Given a column number, find its corresponding Excel column name. Following are more examples.

Input          Output
 26             Z
 51             AY
 52             AZ
 80             CB
 676            YZ
 702            ZZ
 705            AAC

Recommended: Please solve it on “PRACTICE ” first, before moving on to the solution.

Thanks to Mrigank Dembla for suggesting the below solution in a comment.

Suppose we have a number n, let’s say 28. so corresponding to it we need to print the column name. We need to take remainder with 26.

If remainder with 26 comes out to be 0 (meaning 26, 52 and so on) then we put ‘Z’ in the output string and new n becomes n/26 -1 because here we are considering 26 to be ‘Z’ while in actual it’s 25th with respect to ‘A’.

Similarly if the remainder comes out to be non zero. (like 1, 2, 3 and so on) then we need to just insert the char accordingly in the string and do n = n/26.

Finally we reverse the string and print.

Example:
n = 700

Remainder (n%26) is 24. So we put ‘X’ in output string and n becomes n/26 which is 26.

Remainder (26%26) is 0. So we put ‘Z’ in output string and n becomes n/26 -1 which is 0.

Following is C++ implementation of above approach.

C++

// C++ program to find Excel 
// column name from a given 
// column number
#include<bits/stdc++.h>
#define MAX 50
using namespace std;

// Function to print Excel column name for a given column number
void printString(int n)
{
    char str[MAX]; // To store result (Excel column name)
    int i = 0; // To store current index in str which is result

    while (n>0)
    {
        // Find remainder
        int rem = n%26;

        // If remainder is 0, then a 'Z' must be there in output
        if (rem==0)
        {
            str[i++] = 'Z';
            n = (n/26)-1;
        }
        else // If remainder is non-zero
        {
            str[i++] = (rem-1) + 'A';
            n = n/26;
        }
    }
    str[i] = '\0';

    // Reverse the string and print result
    reverse(str, str + strlen(str));
    cout << str << endl;

    return;
}

// Driver program to test above function
int main()
{
    printString(26);
    printString(51);
    printString(52);
    printString(80);
    printString(676);
    printString(702);
    printString(705);
    return 0;
}

Java

// Java program to find Excel 
// column name from a given 
// column number

public class ExcelColumnTitle
{
    // Function to print Excel column
    // name for a given column number
    private static void printString(int columnNumber)
    {
        // To store result (Excel column name)
        StringBuilder columnName = new StringBuilder();

        while (columnNumber > 0)
        {
            // Find remainder
            int rem = columnNumber % 26;

            // If remainder is 0, then a 
            // 'Z' must be there in output
            if (rem == 0)
            {
                columnName.append("Z");
                columnNumber = (columnNumber / 26) - 1;
            }
            else // If remainder is non-zero
            {
                columnName.append((char)((rem - 1) + 'A'));
                columnNumber = columnNumber / 26;
            }
        }

        // Reverse the string and print result
        System.out.println(columnName.reverse());
    }

    // Driver program to test above function
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        printString(26);
        printString(51);
        printString(52);
        printString(80);
        printString(676);
        printString(702);
        printString(705);
    }
}

// This code is contributed by Harikrishnan Rajan

Python

# Python program to find Excel column name from a 
# given column number

MAX = 50

# Function to print Excel column name 
# for a given column number
def printString(n):

    # To store result (Excel column name)
    string = ["\0"] * MAX

    # To store current index in str which is result
    i = 0

    while n > 0:
        # Find remainder
        rem = n % 26

        # if remainder is 0, then a 
        # 'Z' must be there in output
        if rem == 0:
            string[i] = 'Z'
            i += 1
            n = (n / 26) - 1
        else:
            string[i] = chr((rem - 1) + ord('A'))
            i += 1
            n = n / 26
    string[i] = '\0'

    # Reverse the string and print result
    string = string[::-1]
    print "".join(string)

# Driver program to test the above Function
printString(26)
printString(51)
printString(52)
printString(80)
printString(676)
printString(702)
printString(705)

# This code is contributed by BHAVYA JAIN

Output

Z
AY
AZ
CB
YZ
ZZ
AAC

Related Article :
Find Excel column number from column title

Asked in: Directi,Microsoft,Paytm

This article is contributed by Kartik. Please write comments if you find anything incorrect, or you want to share more information about the topic discussed above

Recommended: Please solve it on “PRACTICE ” first, before moving on to the solution.

C++

Java

Python

Asked in: Directi,Microsoft,Paytm

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