How can I get the ascii code of a charter in python?

[Cameron Laird]

In article <1178060108.853490.318050 at h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
John Machin  <sjmachin at lexicon.net> wrote:
>On May 2, 7:06 am, "tedpot... at gmail.com" <tedpot... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> How can I get the ascii code of a charter in python?
>
>E.g. download from here:
>http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10000
>then in Python, use:
>text = open("the_file.txt").read()
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Humorist.