Wow. That can take a really long time to count. This little bit o' code is much faster.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Convert pseudo-base26 number (digits: a-z) to decimal
# really intended to find the ending number needed in
# the for loop for any given string to be used
my $num = 0;
my $char = "a";
my $answer = 0;
until ($char eq "aa") {
$equiv{$char}=$num;
$num++; $char++;
}
print "Enter your lowercase string: ";
chomp($string = <STDIN>);
@strArray=reverse(split(//,$string));
for ($i = 0; $i < @strArray; $i++) {
$answer += ($equiv{$strArray[($i)]} * (25 ** $i));
}
print --$answer;