Storing the value of a method that has returned a value in a class

Question

I am to summarise just using Caesar cipher on my python program to encrypt and decrypt. However, I seem to be completely lost because I want to return self.cipher which is the encrypted message. I want to be able to store this value and use it to decrypt it in my other method decryptCipher. I need advice on how to pass the value I return from the encryptCipher method to the method decryptCipher. I also from running this get an error saying 'str is not callable'. Thanks!

encryption using Caesar cipher (classes)

class CaesarCipher(object):

def __init__(self, plainTxt, key, alphabet):
    self.plainTxt = plainTxt
    self.key = key
    self.alphabet = alphabet
    self.cipher = " "
    self.decryptCipher = " "

    
def encryptCipher(self):
    text = self.plainTxt.lower()
    for lettersintext in text:
        if lettersintext == " ":
            self.cipher+=" "
        else:
            for i in range(len(self.alphabet)):
                if self.alphabet[i] == lettersintext:
                    self.cipher += self.alphabet[i+self.key]
                    break

    return self.cipher


def decryptCipher(self, encryptedVer):
    #request if want to decrypt
    text = encryptedVer.lower()
    for lettersintext in text:
        if lettersintext == " ":
            self.decryptCipher+=" "
        else:
            for i in range(len(alphabet)):
                if self.alphabet[i] == lettersintext:
                    self.decryptCipher += self.alphabet[i-self.key]

    return self.decryptCipher



alphabet = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g',
            'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l', 'o', 'p',
            'q', 'r', 's', 't', 'u', 'v', 'w',
            'x', 'y', 'z']

plainTxt = input("Enter a text to encrypt: ")

key = int(input("Key shift value: "))

init = CaesarCipher(plainTxt, key, alphabet)

print(init.encryptCipher())

encryptedVer = init.encryptCipher()

print(init.decryptCipher(encryptedVer))

Also I apologise about the syntax layout. When I copied the code it ended up this way and I am new to this :)

Answer 1

You're storing the encrypted message in both the object (self.cipher) as well as returning it. Not a problem if you want both, but you may want to blank out your self.cipher before you start populating it (otherwise you'll append a whole new encrypted message on top of previous encryptions as you go).

Alternatively, make a temp empty string and append on it all within your method.

In terms of str not callable, it is because you define an attribute self.decryptCipher = " " in init as well as define a method decryptCipher().

your method call is actually calling your string and trying to pass info into it.