title: converting alphanumeric string to int and vice versa in python
body: <p>I am trying to convert alphanumeric string with maximum length of 40 characters to an integer as small as possible so that we can easily save and retrieve from database. I am not aware if there is any python method existing for it or any simple algorithms we can use. To be specific my string will have only characters 0-9 and a-g. So kindly help with any suggestions on how we can uniquely convert from string to int and vice versa. I am using Python 2.7 on Cent os 6.5</p>