CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonradix
Alex bries
Alex bries

Reputation: 55

Lost letter, base conversion

I am trying to do a custom base conversion in Python by converting from base 39 to base 10 and back. It works fine, except that I lose the last letter of my string:

#base 39(custom characters)
chars = 'esiarntolcdugpmhbyfvkwzxjq 0.,123456789'
nchars = len(chars)

#text that is converted (I am not bob btw)
text = 'hello everyone, bob here'

#convert to decimal 
final = 0
for i, v in enumerate(text):
    print(v)
    final += nchars**i * chars.index(v)

text1 = ''
ind = 0
#convert back to custom base
while final >= 1:
    print(final)
    text1 += chars[final % nchars]
    final = final // nchars

print(text1)
# prints hello everyone, bob her

What am I doing wrong?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 86

Answers (1)

PiCTo
PiCTo

Reputation: 974

You don't systematically lose the last letter of text, this actually only ever happens when it ends with the letter "e". So what's special about that particular letter? Well it starts (or, should I say, it is at index 0 of) your encoding dictionary, chars. Therefore, what would the encoded value of 'e' be? What final value would that represent and what impact would that have on your decoding loop's condition?

I believe this is enough for you to find your bug. However, next time, try using a debugger and step through the code; you'll be able to see where the issue comes from.

Upvotes: 1

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