Depends on what you want to do: to read the value as an ascii code, you can write. char a = 'a'; int ia = (int)a; /* note that the int cast is not necessary -- int ia = a would suffice */. to convert the character '0' -> 0, '1' -> 1, etc, you can write. char a = '4'; int ia = a - '0'; /* check here if ia is bounded by 0 and 9 */. More @Wikipedia
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