Python Morse Code Translator

Question

I've been teaching myself Python over the last few weeks, I have an interest in cryptography, codes, etc. so I figured starting a Morse code translator would be a good project. I know my variable names could be different, it's not really encrypting, decrypting, etc. I'm mostly looking for advice on how I can make the code cleaner and where I can be more efficient.

I think my biggest problem is not really knowing how to handle the inputs in a while loop like I usually would. The problem I had was that I couldn't check if the input was 'e' or 'd' so it just got really wonky.

Areas I know I could improve:

• Add input loop
• The if, elif, else for the action
• Make 'sound' an actual boolean value
• Find the actual sound time for the dit and dah but that's not really a code issue

# Started: 08/17/2020
# Finished: 08/17/2020
# Takes an input message and outputs the message in morse code
# Keys taken from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code'

from playsound import playsound
import time

# Dictionary that holds each letter and it's corresponding value
dict = {'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': '--..',
        '1': '.----', '2': '..---', '3': '...--', '4': '....-', '5': '.....', '6': '-....', '7': '--...', '8': '---..', '9': '----.', '0': '-----',
        ' ': '/', '.': '.-.-.-', ',': '.-.-', '?': '..--..', "'": '.----.', '!': '-.-.--', '/': '-..-.', '(': '-.--.', ')': '-.--.-',
        ':': '---...', ';': '-.-.-.', '=': '-...-', '+': '.-.-.', '-': '-....-', '_': '..--.-', '"': '.-..-.', '$': '...-..-', '@': '.--.-.'}

outputMessage = ""               # Holds our output message

# Sounds
sound = 'False'
dit = 'dit.wav'
dah = 'dah.wav'


def Encrypt(message):

    output = ''

    for char in message:
        if char in dict:
            output = output + dict[char]
            output = output + ' '

    return output


def Get_Key(val):
    for key, value in dict.items():
        if val == value:
            return key


def Decrypt(message):

    output = ''

    letters = message.split(' ')

    for letter in letters:
        temp = Get_Key(letter)
        output = output + temp

    return output


def Get_Inputs():
    # Get Inputs
    inputString = input('Enter a message to start.\n')
    action = input('(E)ncrypt or (D)ecrypt?\n')

    # Format Inputs
    message = inputString.lower().strip()
    action = action.lower().strip()

    return message, action


def Play_Sound(message):

    for char in message:
        if char == '.':
            playsound(dit)
        elif char == '-':
            playsound(dah)
        elif char == ' ':
            time.sleep(0.15)
        elif char == '/':
            time.sleep(0.30)


message, action = Get_Inputs()

if action == 'e' or action == 'encrypt':
    outputMessage = Encrypt(message)
elif action == 'd' or action == 'decrypt':
    outputMessage = Decrypt(message)
else:
    print('Error!')

print(outputMessage)

print('')
sound = input('Play sound? (T)rue / (F)alse\n')
if sound.lower().strip() == 't' or sound.lower().strip() == 'true':
    Play_Sound(outputMessage)

Answer 1

General Style

Your translation dict uses a keyword and lower case letters. Consider writing constants with upper-case letters and giving them expressive names like MORSE_CODES = {...}.

According to PEP 8, functions should be named using snake_case. CamelCase is reserved for classes: outputMessage → output_message, def Encrypt(...) → def encrypt(...), etc.

Performance

Using the Get_Key function is not very performant, since it performs a linear search of the dict. Just reverse the translation dict once and then use it:

MORSE_ENCODING = {
    'a': '.-',
    'b': '-...',
    ...
}
MORSE_DECODING = {value: key for key, value in MORSE_ENCODING.items()}

...

        temp = MORSE_DECODING[letter]

Handling errors

Currently the Encrypt function silently skips all non-translatable characters. Consider Throwing a ValueError() instead to indicate, that invalid input was provided:

def encode(message):
    """Encodes a string into morse code."""

    code = ''

    for index, char in enumerate(message):
        try:
            code += MORSE_ENCODING[char.lower()]
        except KeyError:
            raise ValueError(f'Char "{char}" at {index} cannot be encoded.')

        code += ' '

    return code[:-1]  # Remove trailing space.


def decode(morse_code):
    """Decodes morse code."""

    message = ''

    for index, sequence in enumerate(morse_code.split()):
        try:
            message += MORSE_DECODING[sequence]
        except KeyError:
            raise ValueError(f'Cannot decode code "{sequence}" at {index}.')

    return message

Correctness

Your Encrypt function currently always returns a trailing space. You can avoid that by returning output[:-1].

Terminology

Converting from morse code to text back and forth is not really an encryption in its sense. You might want to rephrase {en,de}crypt with {en,de}code.

Globals

Using global variables like outputMessage can have nasty side-effects when the program is used as a library. All the code below the def Play_Sound function should go into a def main() function that you can invoke via

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

At the bottom of the unit.