An overengineered way to get what 1-based index a letter is in the roman alphabet

alpha_getter.py

import struct

"""
An overengineered way to get what 1-based index a letter is in the roman alphabet
"""


class AlphaBytes:
    UPPERCASE = set([struct.pack('>b', i) for i in range(65, 91)])
    LOWERCASE = set([struct.pack('>b', i) for i in range(97, 123)])


def alphabet_index(character):
    cbytes = bytes(character, 'ascii')
    if cbytes in AlphaBytes.UPPERCASE:
        modifier = -64
    elif cbytes in AlphaBytes.LOWERCASE:
        modifier = -96
    
    return struct.unpack('>b', cbytes)[0] + modifier