Conversion to Base 36

[mmarsden23]

Hi,

I am working on a serial number code converter which stores 5 digit serial numbers as 3 digit alphanumerical codes. For this project I need a way of creating an array of base 36 numbers, however I cannot find a way to convert decimal numbers to base 36 strings in Labview. 

Does anyone know of a simple way to do such a conversion? Any help would be much appreciated.

My organisation is only running Labview 2014, so any VIs need to be compatible with that, thanks. 

[RavensFan]

I had never heard of base36 until now.  If your serial number is only 5 decimal digits, why would you even need to convert to a 3 digit base-36 number?  It doesn't seem to give you much advantage is saving space.

I think it is so uncommon that it is unlikely you will find anyone with ready-made VI's.

I think you'll just need to google some algorithms and code them yourself in LabVIEW.  I imagine that you will need a look-up table of some sort to convert the letters to their decimal equivalent.  And the Quotient Remainder Function will likely come in handy.

[aputman]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base36

[mmarsden23]

Thanks for the response. 

Unfortunately the base 36 code has been chosen by our customer; it certainly provides a challenge for me as I'm still fairly new to LabVIEW. 

I have found a perfect VI that converts from base36 to decimal, post linked below. Is there an easy way to reverse engineer this to work backwards?  

https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/CONVERT-BASE-36-TO-DECIMAL/m-p/728370/highlight/true#M333385

[GerdW]

Hi mars,

Is there an easy way to reverse engineer this to work backwards?

Yes.

It involves some Quotient&Remainder functions and a simple conversion (using a LUT/look-up table) to convert the base36 values into readable chars.

It's a nice project to actually learn some LabVIEW basics, like loops with shift registers and autoindexing, array handling, …

[aputman]

If you want to learn to code in LabVIEW, take this as an opportunity to figure it out on your own.  The Wikipedia article has a C implementation.  Use this as a guide.

[alexderjuengere · Accepted solution]

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@mmarsden23 wrote:

I have found a perfect VI that converts from base36 to decimal, post linked below. Is there an easy way to reverse engineer this to work backwards?  

https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/CONVERT-BASE-36-TO-DECIMAL/m-p/728370/highlight/true#M333385

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I'd rather use the Altenbach-version....

[mmarsden23]

That version does seem a little cleaner. I'm not sure how a matrix just full of 256 0's can be considered a lookup table, however. What is being "looked up", just the index position?

I'm not sure my coding ability is able to reverse engineer this one, even though I know the theory behind for loops etc, I don't think I'm ingenious enough to figure this stuff out yet.

[mmarsden23]

Many thanks for posting that version Alex. I've managed to adapt it into converting my 1D array. 

[alexderjuengere]

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@mmarsden23 wrote:

That version does seem a little cleaner. I'm not sure how a matrix just full of 256 0's can be considered a lookup table, however. What is being "looked up", just the index position?

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he posted a previous version, which is easier to read :

base36StringToDecimalString.vi ‏10 KB

 it's not completely filled with 0 - there are 35  non-zero values

what do you think do  these numbers represent?

there's also a reason, why there are 256 elements in the LUT

you may also want to read the quite short help for the "string to byte array" function

https://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371361R-01/glang/string_to_byte_array/