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Text to Binary in Python

I'm trying to write a binary translator - with a string as an input and its binary representation as output.

And I'm having some difficulties, I wrote in variable the translation for each letter, but they are variables, not strings, so I want to take an input from that matches with the name of the variable and prints the result:

a = "01000001"
b = "01000010"
c = "01000011"
d = "01000100"
# all the way to z
word = input("enter here: ")
print (word)

When I run this I enter a word and it just returns the same word to me but when I write print(a) it returns 01000010 but I can't get it to work with the input.

Can someone tell me where I'm doing something wrong?

Answer*

Following the comments of the users, is a better practice of programming using a dictionary for these cases, you just only have to fill in the dictionary `letterToBin` as you can see in the example

This is a dictionary, wich means it will have a key, and a value, like a cell phone, you have the key as a name (your mother) and the value (his cellphone):

 letterToBin = {}

 letterToBin = {
 "a" : "01000001", #Here, the key is the "a" letter, and the value, his bin transformation, the 01000001
 "b" : "01000010",
 "c" : "01000011",
 "d" : "01000100"
 #so you need to add all the other keys you need, for example the "e"
 "e" : "01000101" #for example
 }




 binToLetter = {} # here I create a second dictionary, and it invert the values of the first, it meas, now the keys will be the bins, and the value the latters
 binToLetter = dict(zip(letterToBin.values(), letterToBin.keys())) #this code do the magic, you must understand, that only needs to feel the first dictionary, and for free, you will have the second dictionary
 
 wordOrBin = input("enter here: ")
 
 if wordOrBin in letterToBin:
 print(letterToBin[wordOrBin]) #here I has if you write a latter (a) or a bin(11001101) and it choose where to look the correct value
 else:
 print(binToLetter[wordOrBin])

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thank you so much it finally worked ive been trying for hours thank you

Eren Biçer
– Eren Biçer

2017年05月29日 19:09:38 +00:00
Commented May 29, 2017 at 19:09
@ErenBiçer I have always loved to help, don't forget accept the answer, with the (✓)

developer_hatch
– developer_hatch

2017年05月29日 19:11:37 +00:00
Commented May 29, 2017 at 19:11
3

Nice hack, but not a good approach. Using a dictionary for the translation table would be the canonical way.

Matthias
– Matthias

2017年05月29日 19:24:36 +00:00
Commented May 29, 2017 at 19:24
@Matthias Yes endeed! hahaha, but see, she is new in this programming world, so she would to rewrite all her code again, and there are a lot of keys from a-z... don't you think?

developer_hatch
– developer_hatch

2017年05月29日 19:26:04 +00:00
Commented May 29, 2017 at 19:26
Nice - but you used the name x for the user's input and she used the same name in her "coding table" (a thru z).

MarianD
– MarianD

2017年05月29日 19:54:07 +00:00
Commented May 29, 2017 at 19:54

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