File character replacement not working.

[Pockets]

I'm using a simple python method that reads from an input text file, does frequency analysis, and replaces the character with the associated most-frequent character. Not 100% perfect, but it should suit my purposes just fine.

The frequency analysis part works just peachy, as does the transposition of the keys. However, for some reason the replace script is not working. Crypt is printed at the end in its original unaltered state. I'm not sure why. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

code:

import sys, string, operator file = open(sys.argv[1], 'r') crypt = file.read() file.close() dic = {} for char in string.uppercase:         dic[char] = crypt.count(char) freq = dic.items() dic = {} freq.sort(key=operator.itemgetter(1)) dic = {} dic[freq[0][0]] = 'z' dic[freq[1][0]] = 'q' dic[freq[2][0]] = 'j' dic[freq[3][0]] = 'x' dic[freq[4][0]] = 'k' dic[freq[5][0]] = 'v' dic[freq[6][0]] = 'b' dic[freq[7][0]] = 'p' dic[freq[8][0]] = 'g' dic[freq[9][0]] = 'y' dic[freq[10][0]] = 'f' dic[freq[11][0]] = 'w' dic[freq[12][0]] = 'm' dic[freq[13][0]] = 'c' dic[freq[14][0]] = 'u' dic[freq[15][0]] = 'l' dic[freq[16][0]] = 'd' dic[freq[17][0]] = 'r' dic[freq[18][0]] = 'h' dic[freq[19][0]] = 's' dic[freq[20][0]] = 'n' dic[freq[21][0]] = 'i' dic[freq[22][0]] = 'o' dic[freq[23][0]] = 'a' dic[freq[24][0]] = 't' dic[freq[25][0]] = 'e' for key in dic.keys():         crypt.replace(key, dic[key]) print crypt

[Pockets]

Nevermind, figured it out. crypt = crypt.replace(etc)

Forgot why I hardly use Python.

[Zeroth]

why do you hardly use python?

[delparnel]

That doesn't occur to me as the most effective way to setup that dictionary.

[Pockets]

delparnel @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 5:28 pm wrote:

That doesn't occur to me as the most effective way to setup that dictionary.

It's not, but the program is quick and dirty and I couldn't be bothered writing a more elegant solution.