String manipulation in python..NEED HELP!!!!

[Vlastimil Brom]

2012/12/10  <qbailey at ihets.org>:
> I need help with a program i am doing. it is a cryptography program. i am given a regular alphabet and a key. i need to use the user input and use the regular alphabet and use the corresponding letter in the key and that becomes the new letter. i have the basic code but need help with how to mainpulate the string to do the encryption/decryption. please help
>
> here is my code so far:
>
>
> """ crypto.py
>     Implements a simple substitution cypher
> """
>
> alpha = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
> key =   "XPMGTDHLYONZBWEARKJUFSCIQV"
>
> def main():
>   keepGoing = True
>   while keepGoing:
>     response = menu()
>     if response == "1":
>       plain = raw_input("text to be encoded: ")
>       print encode(plain)
>     elif response == "2":
>       coded = raw_input("code to be decyphered: ")
>       print decode(coded)
>     elif response == "0":
>       print "Thanks for doing secret spy stuff with me."
>       keepGoing = False
>     else:
>       print "I don't know what you want to do..."
>
>
>
>
> i really need help on how to encrypt it im not sure how to go about doing that please help.
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list


Hi,
if I understand correctly, for the data shown in the code, you may
probably use the translate method of the string (and the corresponding
maketrans method);
cf.:

python 2.7
>>> import string
>>> "ABCDEF...VWXYZ".translate(string.maketrans("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ", "XPMGTDHLYONZBWEARKJUFSCIQV"))
'XPMGTD...SCIQV'
>>>


python 3.2
>>> "ABCDEF...VWXYZ".translate("".maketrans("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ", "XPMGTDHLYONZBWEARKJUFSCIQV"))
'XPMGTD...SCIQV'
>>>

hth,
  vbr