Thread: "Inverting" ASCII characters

Hello,

A good ASCII chart can be found at ASCIITable.com

Edit: Also, here is a general concept of how this can be done.

• If a character is upper case, add 32; 65 ('A') + 32 = 97 ('a');
• If a character is lower case, subtract 32; 97 ('a') - 32 = 65 ('A');

Feel free to use the ctype library functions, isupper() and islower().


- Stack Overflow

Hello,

That is simple.

We know that lower case ASCII characters are between 97 and 122, and upper case ASCII characters are between 65 and 90.

So, here's our concept:

If lower case
Find the difference between the character and the start. So, create an integer that equals your character subtract 97. Where 97 is 'a'.
To invert it, take the difference and subtract it by 122 ('z').

The algorithm works something like this:
122 - (c - 97)

Where c is your character.

If upper case
Find the difference between the character and the start. So, create an integer that equals your character subtract 65. Where 65 is 'A'.
To invert it, take the difference and subtract it by 90 ('Z').

The algorithm works something like this:
90 - (c - 65)

Where c is your character.

Conclusion
If you fill in the blanks, it should work. Let's try it here with the letter d:

Upper case: 90 - ('D' - 65) = 90 - (68 - 65) = 90 - 3 = 87
87 in ASCII is 'W'

Lower case: 122 - ('d' - 97) = 122 - (100 - 97) = 122 - 3 = 119
119 in ASCII is 'w'


- Stack Overflow

That's not too tough. The following pseudocode should get you there:

Code:

If char_to_convert is between 65 and 90
   converted_char =  155 - char_to_convert
If char_to_convert is between 97 and 122
   converted_char = 219 - char_to_convert

Even though the 155 and 219 look like 'magic' numbers, they're pretty easy to come up with. They are just the sums of lower bound and the upper bound of the range. For instance, if you wanted to convert 0-9 in the same manner, you'd subtract the character from 105 (0 has ASCII value 48, 9 has ASCII value 57).

[edit]Ha...which is pretty much exactly what Stack Overflow has for you.[/edit]

Just think of a char as an int.

char 'c' = 99
'd' = 100

So you could go like this:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(void) {
 int i;
 for(i=0; i<=255; i++) {
  printf("%i: %c\n", i, (char)i);
 }

 return 0;
}

Code:

kleid@Shiva:~/Programming/Laboratory$ ./a.out
0:
1:  
2:  
3:  
4:  
5:
6:  
7:
8:
9:
10:

11:

12:

13:
14:
15:
16:  
17:  
18:  
19:  
20:  
21:  
22:  
23:  
24:  
25:  
26:  
27:  
28:  
29:  
30:  
31:  
32:
33: !
34: "
35: #
36: $
37: %
38: &
39: '
40: (
41: )
42: *
43: +
44: ,
45: -
46: .
47: /
48: 0
49: 1
50: 2
51: 3
52: 4
53: 5
54: 6
55: 7
56: 8
57: 9
58: :
59: ;
60: <
61: =
62: >
63: ?
64: @
65: A
66: B
67: C
68: D
69: E
70: F
71: G
72: H
73: I
74: J
75: K
76: L
77: M
78: N
79: O
80: P
81: Q
82: R
83: S
84: T
85: U
86: V
87: W
88: X
89: Y
90: Z
91: [
92: \
93: ]
94: ^
95: _
96: `
97: a
98: b
99: c
100: d
101: e
102: f
103: g
104: h
105: i
106: j
107: k
108: l
109: m
110: n
111: o
112: p
113: q
114: r
115: s
116: t
117: u
118: v
119: w
120: x
121: y
122: z
123: {
124: |
125: }
126: ~
127: 
128: ?
129: ?
130: ?
131: ?
132: ?
133: ?
134: ?
135: ?
136: ?
137: ?
138: ?
139: ?
140: ?
141: ?
142:
143:
144: ?
145: ?
146: ?
147: ?
148: ?
149: ?
150: ?
151: ?
152: ?
153: ?
154: ?
155: ?
156: ?
157: ?
158: ?
159: ?
160: ?
161: ?
162: ?
163: ?
164: ?
165: ?
166: ?
167: ?
168: ?
169: ?
170: ?
171: ?
172: ?
173: ?
174: ?
175: ?
176: ?
177: ?
178: ?
179: ?
180: ?
181: ?
182: ?
183: ?
184: ?
185: ?
186: ?
187: ?
188: ?
189: ?
190: ?
191: ?
192: ?
193: ?
194: ?
195: ?
196: ?
197: ?
198: ?
199: ?
200: ?
201: ?
202: ?
203: ?
204: ?
205: ?
206: ?
207: ?
208: ?
209: ?
210: ?
211: ?
212: ?
213: ?
214: ?
215: ?
216: ?
217: ?
218: ?
219: ?
220: ?
221: ?
222: ?
223: ?
224: ?
225: ?
226: ?
227: ?
228: ?
229: ?
230: ?
231: ?
232: ?
233: ?
234: ?
235: ?
236: ?
237: ?
238: ?
239: ?
240: ?
241: ?
242: ?
243: ?
244: ?
245: ?
246: ?
247: ?
248: ?
249: ?
250: ?
251: ?
252: ?
253: ?
254: ?
255: ?

So if you want to manipulate chars, just pretend they're numbers. But that could not be very portable because it only would probably deal with the ASCII character set.

Hello,

An unsigned char has a value between 0 and 255.
A signed char (or just the shorthand char) has a value between -128 and 127.

A char can have a negative value because it is not necessarily interpreted as a written character. char is merely an integral datatype and like int, short, and long, char can have sign.


- Stack Overflow

Originally Posted by Stack Overflow

Hello,

An unsigned char has a value between 0 and 255.
A signed char (or just the shorthand char) has a value between -128 and 127.

Not exactly. The standard defines "minimum values" for each, not fixed numbers.

A char has the following "minimum values":

a) The low end is CHAR_MIN, which is either SCHAR_MIN or 0, depending on if it is signed by default or not.
b) The high end is CHAR_MAX, which is either SCHAR_MAX, or UCHAR_MAX, again depending if it is signed or not.

A signed char has the following "minimum values":

a) The low end is SCHAR_MIN, which is -127.
b) The high end is SCHAR_MAX, which is 127.

An unsigned char has the following "minimum values":

a) The low end is 0, because there is no UCHAR_MIN macro.
b) The high end is UCHAR_MAX which must be ((2^CHAR_BIT)-1).

And finally, CHAR_BIT must be a minimum of 8.

Again, these are minimums, so it need not be some set value, just so long as it meets the minimum definitions.

Quzah.

Originally Posted by Kleid-0

But that could not be very portable because it only would probably deal with the ASCII character set.

Try to "portablize" it for fun.

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>

void foo ( char *s )
{
   static const char upper[] = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
   static const char lower[] = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
   while ( *s )
   {
      size_t i;
      if ( isupper ( *s ) )
      {
         for ( i = 0; i < sizeof upper - 1; ++i )
         {
            if ( *s == upper [ i ] )
            {
               *s = upper [ ( sizeof upper - 2 ) - i ];
               break;
            }
         }
      }
      else if ( islower ( *s ) )
      {
         for ( i = 0; i < sizeof lower - 1; ++i )
         {
            if ( *s == lower [ ( sizeof lower - 2 ) - i] )
            {
               *s = lower [ i ];
               break;
            }
         }
      }
      ++s;
   }
}

int main ( void )
{
   static char text[] = "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog.";
   puts ( text );
   foo  ( text );
   puts ( text );
   return 0;
} 

/* my output
The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog.
Gsv Jfrxp Yildm Ulc Qfnkh Levi Gsv Ozab Wlt.
*/

More portable fun...

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
int flopchar( int c )
{
    switch( c )
    {
#define C case
#define R return
        C'a':R'z';C'A':R'Z';
        C'b':R'y';C'B':R'Y';
        C'c':R'x';C'C':R'X';
        C'd':R'w';C'D':R'W';
        C'e':R'v';C'E':R'V';
        C'f':R'u';C'F':R'U';
        C'g':R't';C'G':R'T';
        C'h':R's';C'H':R'S';
        C'i':R'r';C'I':R'R';
        C'j':R'q';C'J':R'Q';
        C'k':R'p';C'K':R'P';
        C'l':R'o';C'L':R'O';
        C'm':R'n';C'M':R'N';
        C'n':R'm';C'N':R'M';
        C'o':R'l';C'O':R'L';
        C'p':R'k';C'P':R'K';
        C'q':R'j';C'Q':R'J';
        C'r':R'i';C'R':R'I';
        C's':R'h';C'S':R'H';
        C't':R'g';C'T':R'G';
        C'u':R'f';C'U':R'F';
        C'v':R'e';C'V':R'E';
        C'w':R'd';C'W':R'D';
        C'x':R'c';C'X':R'C';
        C'y':R'b';C'Y':R'B';
        C'z':R'a';C'Z':R'A';

    }
    R 0;
}

int main( void )
{
    int x,y;
    for( x = 'a', y = 'A'; x <= 'z'; x++,y++ )
        printf("%c is %c, %c is %c\n", x, flopchar( x ), y, flopchar( y ) );
    return 0;
}

Quzah.