Caesar Cipher Function in Python

Question

I'm trying to create a simple Caesar Cipher function in Python that shifts letters based on input from the user and creates a final, new string at the end. The only problem is that the final cipher text shows only the last shifted character, not an entire string with all the shifted characters.

Here's my code:

plainText = raw_input("What is your plaintext? ")
shift = int(raw_input("What is your shift? "))

def caesar(plainText, shift): 

    for ch in plainText:
        if ch.isalpha():
            stayInAlphabet = ord(ch) + shift 
            if stayInAlphabet > ord('z'):
                stayInAlphabet -= 26
            finalLetter = chr(stayInAlphabet)
        cipherText = ""
        cipherText += finalLetter

    print "Your ciphertext is: ", cipherText

    return cipherText

caesar(plainText, shift)

Answer 1

def encrypt():
    plainText = input("What is your plaintext? ")
    shift = int(input("What is your shift? "))
    cipherText = ""
    for ch in plainText:
        if ch.isalpha():
            stayInAlphabet = ord(ch) + shift
        if stayInAlphabet > ord('z'):
            stayInAlphabet -= 26
        finalLetter = chr(stayInAlphabet)
        cipherText += finalLetter

    print ("Your ciphertext is: ", cipherText,"with a shift of",shift)


def decrypte():
    encryption=input("enter in your encrypted code")
    encryption_shift=int(input("enter in your encryption shift"))

    cipherText1 = ""
    for c in encryption:
        if c.isalpha():
            stayInAlphabet1 = ord(c) - encryption_shift
        if stayInAlphabet1 > ord('z'):
            stayInAlphabet1 += 26
        finalLetter1 = chr(stayInAlphabet1)
        cipherText1 += finalLetter1

    print ("Your ciphertext is: ", cipherText1,"with negative shift of",encryption_shift)

from tkinter import *

menu=Tk()
menu.title("menu")
menu.geometry("300x300")
button1= Button(menu,text="encrypt",command=encrypt)
button1.pack()

button2= Button(menu,text="decrypt",command=decrypte)
button2.pack()

button3= Button(menu,text="exit",command=exit)
button3.pack()

menu.mainloop()

Answer 2

I have a hard time remember the char to int conversions so this could be optimized

def decryptCaesar(encrypted, shift):
    minRange = ord('a')
    decrypted = ""
    for char in encrypted:
        decrypted += chr(((ord(char) - minRange + shift) % 26) + minRange)

    return decrypted

Answer 3

As @I82much said, you need to take cipherText = "" outside of your for loop. Place it at the beginning of the function. Also, your program has a bug which will cause it to generate encryption errors when you get capital letters as input. Try:

    if ch.isalpha(): 
        finalLetter = chr((ord(ch.lower()) - 97 + shift) % 26 + 97)

Answer 4

import string
wrd=raw_input("Enter word").lower()
fwrd=""
for let in wrd:
    fwrd+=string.ascii_lowercase[(string.ascii_lowercase).index(let)+3]
print"Original word",wrd
print"New word",fwrd

Answer 5

As pointed by others, you were resetting the cipherText in the iteration of the for loop. Placing cipherText before the start of the for loop will solve your problem.

Additionally, there is an alternate approach to solving this problem using Python's Standard library. The Python Standard Library defines a function maketrans() and a method translate that operates on strings.

The function maketrans() creates translation tables that can be used with the translate method to change one set of characters to another more efficiently. (Quoted from The Python Standard Library by Example).

import string

def caesar(plaintext, shift): 

shift %= 26 # Values greater than 26 will wrap around

alphabet_lower = string.ascii_lowercase
alphabet_upper = string.ascii_uppercase

shifted_alphabet_lower = alphabet_lower[shift:] + alphabet_lower[:shift]
shifted_alphabet_upper = alphabet_upper[shift:] + alphabet_upper[:shift]

alphabet = alphabet_lower + alphabet_upper 
shifted_alphabet = shifted_alphabet_lower + shifted_alphabet_upper

table = string.maketrans(alphabet, shifted_alphabet) 

return plaintext.translate(table)

Answer 6

You need to move cipherText = "" before the start of the for loop. You're resetting it each time through the loop.

def caesar(plainText, shift): 
  cipherText = ""
  for ch in plainText:
    if ch.isalpha():
      stayInAlphabet = ord(ch) + shift 
      if stayInAlphabet > ord('z'):
        stayInAlphabet -= 26
      finalLetter = chr(stayInAlphabet)
      cipherText += finalLetter
  print "Your ciphertext is: ", cipherText
  return cipherText