cipha-cli

A simple CLI and Package for Classical Ciphers and Cryptography in Rust

Introduction

The cipha-cli is a command-line interface (CLI) tool designed to encode and decode messages using various cryptographic ciphers. This tool leverages the cipha crate, which provides implementations of several popular ciphers.

Installation

To use the cipha-cli, you need to have Rust and the cargo package manager installed. It comes with the cipha crate hence you can use

cargo install cipha-cli

Here’s how you can build and install the CLI:

git clone https://github.com/jcharistech/cipha-cli.git
cd cipha-cli
cargo build --release
cargo install --path .

Usage

The cipha-cli supports two main subcommands: encode and decode. You can get a detailed overview of the available options and how to use them below.

Encode Subcommand

cipha-cli encode --help

Options

• --cipher: The cipher to use (e.g., rot13, caesar, reverse, gematria, vigenere, morse, atbash).
• --message: The message to encode.
• --file: Read the message from a file.
• --shift: Shift value for Caesar cipher (default: 3).
• --key: Key to encrypt by.
• --output-file: Output to a file instead of stdout.

Example Usage for Encode

cipha-cli encode --cipher rot13 --message "Hello, World!"
cipha-cli encode --cipher caesar --message "Hello, World!" --shift 3
cipha-cli encode --cipher vigenere --message "Hello, World!" --key "LEMON"
cipha-cli encode --cipher morse --message "Hello, World!"
cipha-cli encode --cipher atbash --message "Hello, World!"
cipha-cli encode --cipher gematria --message "Hello, World!"
cipha-cli encode --cipher reverse --message "Hello, World!"

Decode Subcommand

cipha-cli decode --help

Options

• --cipher: The cipher to use (e.g., rot13, caesar, reverse, gematria, vigenere, morse, atbash).
• --message: The message to decode.
• --file: Read the message from a file.
• --shift: Shift value for Caesar cipher (default: 3).
• --key: Key to decrypt by.
• --output-file: Output to a file instead of stdout.

Example Usage for Decode

cipha-cli decode --cipher rot13 --message "Uryyb, Jbeyq!"
cipha-cli decode --cipher caesar --message "Khoor, Zruog!" --shift 3
cipha-cli decode --cipher vigenere --message "LXFOPVEFRNHR" --key "LEMON"
cipha-cli decode --cipher morse --message ".... . .-.. .-.. ---"
cipha-cli decode --cipher atbash --message "ZGGZXPZGWZDM"
cipha-cli decode --cipher gematria --message "8 5 12 12 15 ,   23 15 18 12 4 !"
cipha-cli decode --cipher reverse --message "!dlroW ,olleH"

Supported Ciphers

• ROT13: A simple substitution cipher where each letter is shifted by 13 places.

  cipha-cli encode --cipher rot13 --message "Hello, World!"
  cipha-cli decode --cipher rot13 --message "Uryyb, Jbeyq!"
  

• Caesar: A substitution cipher where each letter is shifted by a specified number of places.

  cipha-cli encode --cipher caesar --message "Hello, World!" --shift 3
  cipha-cli decode --cipher caesar --message "Khoor, Zruog!" --shift 3
  

• Reverse: Reverses the input message.

  cipha-cli encode --cipher reverse --message "Hello, World!"
  cipha-cli decode --cipher reverse --message "!dlroW ,olleH"
  

• Gematria: Converts alphabetic characters to their corresponding numerical values and vice versa.

  cipha-cli encode --cipher gematria --message "Hello, World!"
  cipha-cli decode --cipher gematria --message "8 5 12 12 15 ,   23 15 18 12 4 !"
  

• Vigenère: A polyalphabetic substitution cipher that uses a keyword to shift each letter.

  cipha-cli encode --cipher vigenere --message "Hello, World!" --key "LEMON"
  cipha-cli decode --cipher vigenere --message "LXFOPVEFRNHR" --key "LEMON"
  

• Morse: Encodes and decodes messages into Morse code.

  cipha-cli encode --cipher morse --message "Hello, World!"
  cipha-cli decode --cipher morse --message ".... . .-.. .-.. ---"
  

• Atbash: A simple substitution cipher where each letter is replaced by its corresponding letter at the opposite end of the alphabet.

  cipha-cli encode --cipher atbash --message "Hello, World!"
  cipha-cli decode --cipher atbash --message "ZGGZXPZGWZDM"
  

Retrieving Messages

The CLI can retrieve the message to be encoded or decoded from either a command-line argument (--message) or a file (--file).

cipha-cli encode --cipher rot13 --message "Hello, World!"
cipha-cli encode --cipher rot13 --file path/to/message.txt

Output

By default, the output is written to stdout. You can specify an output file using the --output-file option.

cipha-cli encode --cipher rot13 --message "Hello, World!" --output-file output.txt

Conclusion

The cipha-cli provides a versatile and easy-to-use interface for encoding and decoding messages using various cryptographic ciphers. By following the examples and using the provided options, you can effectively utilize this tool in your cryptographic tasks.