Python - Caesar Cipher

Question

I\'m new to Python and thought I\'d try to make a Caesar cipher and could use some help with my code. It looks like this:

def cipher(input):
    input = input.lo         


        

Answer 1

Your indentation is incorrect:

for i in input:
    if i == ' ':  #for space
        output.append(' ')
    else:
        pos = alphabet.index(i) + steps
        if pos >= 25:  #for out-of-range
            pos -= 26

    output.append(alphabet[pos]) # note here

You append to the output whether or not i is a space. This would break completely if the first character was a space (NameError, as pos is not yet assigned), but just causes repeats elsewhere in the string.

Change to:

for i in input:
    if i == ' ':  #for space
        output.append(' ')
    else:
        pos = alphabet.index(i) + steps
        if pos >= 25:  #for out-of-range
            pos -= 26
        output.append(alphabet[pos]) # now inside 'else'

Note you can also simplify your out-of-range:

pos = (alphabet.index(i) + steps) % 26

Answer 2

The statement

output.append(alphabet[pos])

should be inside the else block. In case of i == ' ', the output.append is run twice