Question : Which strategies to use for a program written in python?

Dear all,

Previously, I was trying to create an simple Python program to crack various encoded message fortunately with the help given and a beginner's luck in both areas. I was able to crack the message in english language only and not other different languages.

After reading about various strategies on cracking Vigenere cipher. I was wondering whether did I used the "wrong" strategy, kappa test to approach this overwhleming challenge.

I hope by creating this question, I am able to get a better idea through your comments so that I can resolve the current issue of trying to load different language's freq. distribution text files.

Any comments on this would be great!!

Thanks.

Answer : Which strategies to use for a program written in python?

Hi Jon,
Please look at post http://www.experts-exchange.com/Q_26328009.html, where I showed you how to read the frequency table of a language.

If you want to 'preset' all letters, which are not set in your frequency file to probability 0, then just do this before you read in the probabilities of your file.

                       
             import string
# python has already a variable containing all ascii upper case letters
all_uppercase_letters = string.ascii_uppercase
# python has also the variable string.uppercase, but this might vary 
# depending on your computer's local settings (language settings)

# create the lookup table ( dict ), 
#that shall contain the frequencies for all the letters in your file.
freq_table =  {}  # empty dict is {} / empty list is []
for letter in all_uppercase_letters:
    freq_table[letter] = 0  # set all letter frequencies by default to 0