Merge pull request #29 from linuxdotexe/main

password generator script

passwordGenerator/README.md

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+# `passwordGenerator.py` - code explained
+
+This is a brief explanation of the `passwordGenerator.py` program.
+
+## What this program accomplishes
+
+This program generates alpha-numeric passwords with symbols and stores them in a file of your choice if you want it to.
+
+## How the script works
+
+When you run the script, the following will be the output:
+
+```
+Enter the length of the password you wish to generate:
+```
+
+Assume you want a password of length 8 characters. So you enter 8 in the above prompt and you get the following output:
+
+```
+Generated password:
+aCh}C/5N
+```
+
+Then you are asked if you want to store the password in a file.
+
+```
+Do you wish to log this password into a file?
+Enter 'yes' if you do:
+```
+
+If we enter 'yes' here, we get the following output:
+
+```
+Enter the file name:
+```
+
+We are asked to enter the name of the file we want to store it in. If the file doesn't already exist, it is created upon entering. Suppose we enter a file name `log.txt`, we see an output that indicates the password is stored in the file of our choice.
+
+```
+Done!
+```
+
+This is what the script does. Now let's see how it works.
+
+## What's inside
+
+These are the elements of the script
+
+### Imports
+
+I have used the `choice` class of the `secrets` library to make the program return one random character from the list of characters.
+
+```python
+import secrets
+```
+
+You can find the difference between `random` and `secrets` [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzlfXSBzhx8).
+
+### Methods
+
+This program has two methods, `generate` and `logger`. Let's see what these do.
+
+1. **The `generate` method**
+This method generates the password. We can decide the length of the password.
+
+```python
+def generate(length):
+    char_list = ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'o', 'p', 'q', 'r', 's', 't', 'u', 'v', 'w', 'x', 'y', 'z', 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'H', 'I', 'J', 'K', 'L', 'M', 'N', 'O', 'P', 'Q', 'R', 'S', 'T', 'U', 'V', 'W', 'X', 'Y', 'Z', '!', '"', '#', '$', '%', '&', "'", '(', ')', '*', '+', ',', '-', '.', '/', ':', ';', '<', '=', '>', '?', '@', '[', '\\', ']', '^', '_', '`', '{', '|', '}', '~']
+    password = ''
+```
+
+`def generate(length)` defines the `generate` method and conveys that it takes an input `length` and generates a password. The `char_list` is the list of characters the password will be made of. I obtained this list using the `printable` class of the `string` library and omitted the characters that are not suitable for the task. Those are  `[\t, \n, \r, \x0b, \x0c]`. Then, I initialized an empty string `password` where I store the password.
+
+```python
+for i in range(length):
+        password += secrets.choice(char_list)
+    return password
+```
+
+After that, I created a `for` loop to generate the password. On each iteration of the loop, one random character from the `char_list` is appended to the `password` string using the `choice` class of the `secrets` library. And finally, the generated string is returned.
+
+1. The `logger` method
+This method writes the generated password to a file of your choosing.
+
+```python
+def logger():
+    filename = input("Enter the file name: ")
+```
+
+The line `def logger():` defines the `logger` method. Next, we create a variable `filename` and take a string input from the user. Then, we create a handle for the file under this name with the line
+
+```python
+file = open(filename, 'a')
+```
+
+This opens a file with that name or creates a new file under the given name if if doesn't exists already and enables the `a` operation which is `append`. Now, we write the generated password with to the chosen file and add an empty line with these commands.
+Here, the variable `generateOutput` is a global variable and hence doesn't throw an error inspite of not being in the method.
+
+```python
+file.write(generateOutput)
+file.write('\n')
+```
+
+Now, we print an indication that the writing is done and close the opened `file` handle.
+
+```python
+print("Done!")
+file.close()
+```
+
+### Inputs and driver Code
+
+Now that we defined the required methods, we use these in the following code. These are the following things we will do to use all the code written:
+
+```python
+length = int(input("Enter the length of the password you wish to generate: "))
+```
+
+This takes the length of the password we want to generate as input. Now, we use the `generate` method and store the output in the `generateOutput` variable and print it.
+
+```python
+generateOutput = generate(length)
+print("Generated password:\n" + generateOutput)
+```
+
+Now, we ask the user if they want to store the password in a file.
+
+```python
+logging = input("Do you wish to log this password into a file?\nEnter 'yes' if you do: ").lower()
+```
+
+We use `lower()` function to avoid unnessasary complexities in comparision.
+
+Then, we use a simple `if` condition to call our `logger` function.
+
+```python
+if logging == "yes":
+    logger()
+```
+
+## Conclusion
+
+This is how the code works. Hope the explanation is understandable and useful.

passwordGenerator/passwordGenerator.py

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+import secrets
+
+def generate(length):
+    char_list = ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'o', 'p', 'q', 'r', 's', 't', 'u', 'v', 'w', 'x', 'y', 'z', 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'H', 'I', 'J', 'K', 'L', 'M', 'N', 'O', 'P', 'Q', 'R', 'S', 'T', 'U', 'V', 'W', 'X', 'Y', 'Z', '!', '"', '#', '$', '%', '&', "'", '(', ')', '*', '+', ',', '-', '.', '/', ':', ';', '<', '=', '>', '?', '@', '[', '\\', ']', '^', '_', '`', '{', '|', '}', '~']
+    password = ''
+    for i in range(length):
+        password += secrets.choice(char_list)
+    return password
+
+def logger():
+    filename = input("Enter the file name: ")
+    file = open(filename, 'a')
+    file.write(generateOutput)
+    file.write('\n')
+    print("Done!")
+    file.close()
+
+length = int(input("Enter the length of the password you wish to generate: "))
+generateOutput = generate(length)
+print("Generated password:\n" + generateOutput)
+logging = input("Do you wish to log this password into a file?\nEnter 'yes' if you do: ").lower()
+if logging == "yes":
+    logger()