how to do bitwise exclusive or of two strings in python?

Question

I would like to perform a bitwise exclusive or of two strings in python, but xor of strings are not allowed in python. How can I do it ?

Answer 1

Here is your string XOR'er, presumably for some mild form of encryption:

>>> src = "Hello, World!"
>>> code = "secret"
>>> xorWord = lambda ss,cc: ''.join(chr(ord(s)^ord(c)) for s,c in zip(ss,cc*100))
>>> encrypt = xorWord(src, code)
>>> encrypt
';\x00\x0f\x1e\nXS2\x0c\x00\t\x10R'
>>> decrypt = xorWord(encrypt,code)
>>> print decrypt
Hello, World!

Note that this is an extremely weak form of encryption. Watch what happens when given a blank string to encode:

>>> codebreak = xorWord("      ", code)
>>> print codebreak
SECRET