pset2: "vigenere" unexpected output

Question

I've been busting my head over this all day. So the main problem (I think) is that I'm having difficulties synchronizing the chars from the key with the chars from the sentence after a non-alpha character is on the way. The problem is that int "i" (in the code in this post) keeps going up even when there are non-alpha characters, so in my equation later, the key also moves one position away from the letter that should be used. That's why I created "o" which should increase every time the programme gets to a non-alphabetic character. Then its value gets subtracted and that way cuts the gap between the two strings (key and sentence). That was a brief explanation on the most important point in my code from where I think the problem comes. I hope that any of you guys would give me a tip on how to fix my loop, offer other non-loop solutions or finds a different problem in the code.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <cs50.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <ctype.h>

int main(int argc, string argv[])
{
    while(argc != 2)                    //yells at the user if more or less than 2 arguments
    {
        printf("Enter a key.\n");
        return 1;
    }

    string s = GetString();         //user gives input

    for(int i = 0, n = strlen(s); i < n; i++)       //goes through every character of that input
    {
        for(int o = 0; isalpha(s[i]); o++)              //loop used to cope with dishronyzation because of non-alpha chars
        {
            if(isalpha(s[i]))               //checks if its a letter character
            {
                o = o - 1;                  //getting rid of "o" value because the char is a letter
                int d = strlen(argv[1]);

                if(isupper(s[i]))               //checks if its an uppercase letter
                {
                    int f = (i - o) % d;        //synchronizes every character from the key with every character from the sentence
                    int h = argv[1][f] - 65;    //because of "o", excluding the difference that non-alpha chars give 
                    char v = s[i] - 65;
                    char a = (v + h) % 26;               //uses modulo, so that the output is only alphabetical
                    char l = a + 65;
                    printf("%c", l);                //prints the encrypted character                    
                }

                if(islower(s[i]))               //does the same process for lowercase letters
                {
                    int w = (i - o) % d;
                    int e = argv[1][w] - 97;
                    char t = s[i] - 97;
                    char y = (t + e) % 26;
                    char u = y + 97;
                    printf("%c", u);
                }
            }
            else
            {
                printf("%c", s[i]);                 //prints non-alpha chars
            }
        }
    }
    printf("\n");
}

Answer 1

There are a couple of issues to be dealt with here. First, using two loops is a bad approach. You want to use a loop for something that must be done every time, not something that may or may not be done. In this case, while every letter is examined in the plain text, not every key letter is consumed in the process.

Next, tracking the key with the same index, i, as used to track the key is a problem for the same reason. Every char in the plaintext is processed, whether encoded or just echoed, while key chars are only consumed when a letter is encoded.

There's an old saying in programming, "KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid!" - something I tell myself at some point during every project. In this case, the simple thing to do is to track the key index with a simple int variable. When a letter is encoded, just increment the index var. Also, be sure to declare and initialize this var before and outside of the for loop.

Finally, there's another problem lying in wait that you haven't discovered. The code does not handle the condition where the plaintext and the key are not the same case - one is upper case and the other lower case. I'll leave it to you to write this code as you probably haven't thought about it.

This should get you going, or at least give you plenty to think about.

If this answers your question, please click on the check mark to accept. Let's keep up on forum maintenance. ;-)