Solution Exercise 37

In cryptography, a Caesar cipher is a very simple encryption techniques in which each letter in the plain text is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions down the alphabet. For example, with a shift of 3, A would be replaced by D, B would become E, and so on. The method is named after Julius Caesar, who used it to communicate with his generals. ROT-13 ("rotate by 13 places") is a widely used example of a Caesar cipher where the shift is 13. In Python, the key for ROT-13 may be represented by means of the following dictionary:

Your task in this exercise is to implement an encoder/decoder of ROT-13. Once you're done, you will be able to read the following secret message:

Pnrfne pvcure? V zhpu cersre Pnrfne fnynq!

Note that since English has 26 characters, your ROT-13 program will be able to both encode and decode texts written in English.

key = {'a':'n', 'b':'o', 'c':'p', 'd':'q', 'e':'r', 'f':'s', 'g':'t', 'h':'u', 
       'i':'v', 'j':'w', 'k':'x', 'l':'y', 'm':'z', 'n':'a', 'o':'b', 'p':'c', 
       'q':'d', 'r':'e', 's':'f', 't':'g', 'u':'h', 'v':'i', 'w':'j', 'x':'k',
       'y':'l', 'z':'m', 'A':'N', 'B':'O', 'C':'P', 'D':'Q', 'E':'R', 'F':'S', 
       'G':'T', 'H':'U', 'I':'V', 'J':'W', 'K':'X', 'L':'Y', 'M':'Z', 'N':'A', 
       'O':'B', 'P':'C', 'Q':'D', 'R':'E', 'S':'F', 'T':'G', 'U':'H', 'V':'I', 
       'W':'J', 'X':'K', 'Y':'L', 'Z':'M'}

def encipher(text):
    result = ""
    for c in text:
        #Only look up letters
        if c.isalpha():
            result += key[c]
        else: #Any other character will be stored as is
            result += c
    return result


def main():
    #Decoding the message
    print(encipher("Pnrfne pvcure? V zhpu cersre Pnrfne fnynq!"))
    #Creating a secret message
    print(encipher("This secret will be kept forever!"))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()