How do I convert characters into integers?

[tenax.raccoon at gmail.com]

There's another option that I haven't seen yet as well, where you use
the translation method for strings.

<code>
# Build a list where each entry is a character whose value is 3 higher
than its index.
charList = [ chr((x+3) % 256)  for x in range(256) ]
transform = ''.join(charList)  # Change the list to a string, which the
tranlate method requires

print "Hello there!".translate(transform)
</code>

The translate method can be very useful, although it can only translate
on a character-by-character basis.

  --Jason