converting a character to an integer

I have a database table named SIP_FLORES_FITS_STATE_CDS (Don't laugh too hard, I didn't name it this, I just maintain the sql)
and this table has three columns in it. The column I am going to be talking about is named FITS_SUFFIX
Here is a sample of some of the data in this column.

FITS_SUFFIX
___________
BAR
CBA
EDF
FFR
GAT

In the stored procedure at line 15 below they are converting a record value in the FITS_SUFFIX table to an integer.
This is where I am getting lost. They are converting a character value to an integer. I can understand how you could
convert the very first character to an integer, but not the entire 3 character code? For example the first record is
BAR, and when that is converted to an integer, what is the output?

Anyway, I did not include all of the stored procedure code, I just included the code below and numbered the lines,
so that I could refer to the line numbers.





1  DECLARE lchSuffix  VARCHAR(3)

2  DECLARE CURS_STATE CURSOR
3   FOR
4     SELECT FITS_STATE_CD, FITS_PREFIX, FITS_SUFFIX
5      FROM SIP_FLORES_FITS_STATE_CDS FITS
6      WHERE FITS.FITS_ACTIVE = 1
7   ORDER BY FITS_STATE_CD
8
9   OPEN CURS_STATE
10  FETCH NEXT FROM CURS_STATE
11  INTO @lchStateCode, @lchPrefix, @lchSuffix
12  WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
13  BEGIN



14  OPEN CURS_STATE
15  SELECT @lchFITS_SUFFIX = CONVERT(INT, @lchSuffix)
16  SELECT @lchFITS_SUFFIX = @lchFITS_SUFFIX  + 1;