Caesar Cipher #1

gistfile1.py

from string import whitespace, punctuation

def shift(c, shift_by = 2):
    if c in whitespace + punctuation: return c

    upper_ord, lower_ord, c_ord = ord('A'), ord('a'), ord(c)
    c_rel = (c_ord - lower_ord) if c_ord >= lower_ord else (c_ord - upper_ord)
    offset = lower_ord if c_ord >= lower_ord else upper_ord
    return chr(offset + (c_rel + shift_by) % 26)

msg = 'a quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog'
encoded_msg = ''.join(shift(l) for l in msg)