# File lib/CharDistributionAnalysis.rb, line 158
        def get_order(aStr)
            # for GB2312 encoding, we are interested 
            #  first  byte range: 0xb0 -- 0xfe
            #  second byte range: 0xa1 -- 0xfe
            # no validation needed here. State machine has done that
            if (aStr[0] >= 0xB0) and (aStr[1] >= 0xA1)
                return 94 * (aStr[0] - 0xB0) + aStr[1] - 0xA1
            else
                return -1;
            end
        end