Byte Insight
Morse
Introduction
This challenge is based around conversions between text and morse code. It could be done as a straightforward Python program but if completed on a Raspberry Pi, Arduino or similar then it could be linked into the GPIO pins and a LED output could be produced. You can use the morse code files located here.
The Task
Read in the morse code file into a dictionary so letters can easily be converted to their morse code equivalent.
Some Helpful Hints.
This is not a complete solution but it should help you get started and providing you read carefully you should be able to figure out the missing steps.
Step1: Start by opening the file I have provided below using the open command.
f = open('morsecodeshort.txt', 'r')
|
Notice how we are using r as we are reading from the file. Once the file is open you can loop through the lines as shown on the linked page and below
for line in f:Test this is working by printing out each line.
Step 2: Each line consists of a letter and the corresponding morse code. They are separated by tabs. We are going to store our text file in a Python Dictionary (aka Associative Array aka Key Value Array) but before we can do this we must split each line using
key, value = line.split(‘t’)With the split done we should store our key/values into a dictionary.
Step 3: Now you have your morse code dictionary loaded you are ready to get words from the command line. You can use the raw_input command to achieve this.
phrase = raw_input(“Enter the phrase to transmit: “)Before we can process the input we must split our word into an list (aka array) of single letters
phraselist = list(phrase)With the letters in a list we are now in a position to loop through the letters finding the corresponding morse codes and transmit them.
Step 4: To find each code you will want to use the following command
code = morsedict.get(letter.upper())Note how I’m converting the letter to uppercase to match the uppercase letters in the text file.
Possible Extension
On a Raspberry Pi you could output the message as a series of LED flashes.
IMAGE CREDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code