In the bijective base-26 system one may use the Latin alphabet letters "A" to "Z" to represent the 26 digit values
one to
twenty-six. (A=1, B=2, C=3, ..., Z=26) With this choice of notation, the number sequence (starting from 1) begins A, B, C, ..., X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, ..., AX, AY, AZ, BA, BB, BC, ... Each digit position represents a power of twenty-six, so for example, the numeral WI represents the value = 607 in base 10. Many
spreadsheets including
Microsoft Excel use this system to assign labels to the columns of a spreadsheet, starting A, B, C, ..., Z, AA, AB, ..., AZ, BA, ..., ZZ, AAA, etc. For instance, in Excel 2013, there can be up to 16384 columns (214 in binary code), labeled from A to XFD.
Malware variants are also named using this system: for example, the first widespread Microsoft Word macro virus, Concept, is formally named WM/Concept.A, its 26th variant WM/Concept.Z, the 27th variant WM/Concept.AA, et seq. A variant of this system is used to name
variable stars. It can be applied to any problem where a systematic naming using letters is desired, while using the shortest possible strings. ==Historical notes==