Getting different values from convert char to integer

Question

when I display the 'i' variable, which would be a char value

{
  class Program {
    static void Main(string[] args) {
      var max = 0;
      var lista = new char[] {
        '1',
        '2',
        '3',
        '4'
      };
      foreach(char i in lista) {
        Console.WriteLine(i);
        /* var hola =  Convert.ToInt32(i);
          Console.WriteLine(hola);*/
      }
    }
  }
}

I get this:

> 1 2 3 4

However, when converting 'i' into an int

var max = 0;
var lista = new char[] {
  '1',
  '2',
  '3',
  '4'
};
foreach(char i in lista) {
  var hola = Convert.ToInt32(i);
  Console.WriteLine(hola);
}    
            

I get this:

49 50 51 52

Any idea what could be the problem? I'd like to obtain the same values, so I can evaluate them as integers and obtain the biggest of them, but I can't.

Answer 1

When you convert a char to an int, you get the ASCII value of that character. The neat thing with these values is that they are sequential, so if you subtract the value of '0' (the 0 character), you can convert a character representing a digit to that digit:

var hola =  i - '0';