I would like to get all the letters of the alphabet in a string list without having to write letter by letter.
a = ["a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f", "g", "h", "i", "j", "k", "l", "m", "n", "o", "p",
"q", "r", "s", "t", "u", "v", "w", "x", "y", "z"]
With Elixir you have a way of representing characters by binary values, for example:
Let's say I want to represent the binary value of the letter: a
iex(0)> <<97>>
"a"
The binary varies for the character representation in the upper case:
iex(0)> <<65>>
"A"
Elixir offers a succinct syntax so that binary representations do not get so hard code. You can get the same effect just by putting a ? before the character you want to get the code from:
iex(0)> <<?a>>
"a"
iex(1)> <<?A>>
"A"
With this we have all the tools we need to make our list of alphabet letters:
iex(0)> Enum.map(Enum.to_list(?a..?z), fn(n) -> <<n>> end)
Or if by chance we want the letters in the upper case:
Enum.map(Enum.to_list(?A..?Z), fn(n) -> <<n>> end)