Encoding a string as an integer .NET

Question

I have a string that I would like represented uniquely as an integer.

For example: A3FJEI = 34950140

How would I go about writing a EncodeAsInteger(string) method. I understand that the amount of characters in the string will make the integer increase greatly, forcing the value to become a long, not an int.

Since I need the value to be an integer, I don't need the numerical representation to be entirely unique to the string.

Maybe I can foreach through all the characters of the string and sum the numerical keycode of the character.

Answer 1

    protected int EncodeStringAsInt(string value)
    {
        return value.ToCharArray().Sum(c => Convert.ToInt32(c));
    }