Can you set a letter as a number?

Question

i have to do a GPA calculator program, and i would like to set a=5, b=4, c=3, etc .. so i can multiply the letter grade by the # of credits. does anyone know how i would go about doing this ?

Answer 1

A HashMap would work, a simple Grade class or better an Enum can work nicely too.
I've used an enum like this before:
    private enum Grade
        A('A', 5.0),
        B('B', 4.0),
        C('C', 3.0),
        D('D', 2.0),
        F('F', 1.0);
        private char letter;
        private double score;
        private Grade(char letter, double score)
            this.letter = letter;
            this.score = score;
        ...........