Hi,
One of the challenges on the challenge you web page appropriately titled
'Brute force' reads as follows:
"The password you have to guess is 'loner' . Try all combinations of
lowercase letters until you guess it. Try not to loop much for example,
save all used combinations in an array so you don't repeat."
My code is as follows:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import random
def GetString():
alphabet='abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
return ''.join(random.sample(alphabet,5))
def main():
password='loner'
errknt = 0
control = True
while control is True:
if GetString() != password:
errknt +=1
else:
print 'Password found in ',errknt,' tries.'
control = False
if __name__ == '__main__': main()
The code does work. I am looking for suggestions to learn more about
both efficiency and optimization of code.
Since the challenge revolves around the use of randomized retrieval, I'm
not too sure how to optimize the process. The authors concept of using
arrays seem a bit superfluous as I think it takes longer to add an item
to a dictionary and retrieve an item from a dictionary than it does to
do an if compare of two 5 character strings. So, I left that code out of
the program entirely. If that was wrong, or there is a better way to
avoid duplication, please point me in the right direction.
I think, perhaps, I could make it a tad more efficient if I changed
'alphabet' from a string to a list as I remember reading that lists are
significantly faster to manipulate than are strings. Is that true and is
it a viable change.
I realize my code looks like modified C++ structured code. I am trying
to become more Python concise but I think that is a matter of writing
more and more python code.
All suggestions, ideas, critiques are most welcome.
Thank you,
Robert
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