Bacon Cipher Encoder & Decoder

A C++ command-line program that converts text files to and from Bacon’s cipher. Letters are represented by five-character patterns of a and b.

Build and run

From the repository root, compile with a C++ compiler:

g++ -std=c++11 main.cpp -o bacon_cipher

Encode a text file, then decode the result:

./bacon_cipher input.txt -bc encoded.txt
./bacon_cipher encoded.txt -e decoded.txt

The argument order is <input file> <-bc|-e> <output file>. Supply all three arguments and use different input and output paths.

Encoding format

• A–Z and a–z share the same codes; decoded letters are uppercase.
• Encoded characters are separated by |; spaces use /.
• Unsupported characters encode as !!!!! and decode as #.

This is an educational implementation of a historical cipher. Input is processed with fixed-size line buffers.

Files

• main.cpp: command-line parsing, file processing, and cipher mappings.

Author: Sreeram Kondapalli