Fun activity 🎄 Christmas Coding Challenge – Day 3 (The Grand Finale!) 🎄

[simong1993]

The Story​

Santa left behind a mysterious encrypted note—the final piece of our Christmas quest. It’s written in the special Candy Cane Cipher, which shifts each character’s ASCII code by a fixed amount. Your mission is to decode this note and uncover Santa’s hidden holiday greeting in Python!

The Puzzle:​

You are given this array of numbers (as a Python list):

codedMessage = [
    80,104,117,117,124,35,70,107,117,108,118,119,
    112,100,118,35,73,117,114,112,35,87,107,104,
    35,70,114,103,104,105,114,117,120,112,35,
    87,104,100,112
]

1. Each number in codedMessage represents an ASCII character that’s been shifted by a fixed (and small) integer offset.
2. You must subtract the shift from each of these numbers to recover the original ASCII value, then convert it back to a character.
3. The decoded string is Santa’s secret message. When your Python program runs and prints that message, you’ll see the grand Christmas greeting!

Your Tasks​

1. Write a Python function that:
   
   • Takes the codedMessage list.
   • Correctly unshifts each code by the correct single-digit offset.
   • Converts the result to a string of readable text.
2. Output that original message as the very last line in your program.
   • No extra text should follow—just the decoded greeting.
3. Important:
   • Do NOT reveal the final message in your code or in your explanation.
   • Let others discover the greeting themselves if they run your script.

Example (High-Level Pseudocode in Python)​

def revealCandyCaneCipher(coded_message):
    shift = ...  # the correct numeric offset you discover
    decoded_chars = []


    for code in coded_message:
        original_ascii = code - shift
        decoded_chars.append(chr(original_ascii))


    decoded_message = "".join(decoded_chars)
    print(decoded_message)  # Final greeting

(Of course, you have to figure out the correct shift!)

A Hint from Santa’s Elves​

The elves say the shift is a small single-digit integer. Try a few values (1 through 9) and see which produces a cheerful English phrase.

That’s a Wrap!​

1. Submit your Python code.
2. Do NOT display the decoded message in your submission—just the code.
3. When your program runs, it must ultimately print Santa’s hidden greeting on a single line, and nothing else afterward.

 

[EkBass]

Hello and happy Christmas and New Year to everyone.

Since hacking such "secret messages" requires not only raw computational power but also creativity, cunning, and a bit of understanding of the ancient ASCII world, I approached the problem differently. I do not use computin gpower to find the proper number with what the message is scrambled, but instead my lazy-ass brains 😀

Facts:
1. In a message that long, there must inevitably be spaces.
2. Spaces appear every few characters.

Spoiler alert:

In the ASCII character set, the code for a space is 32, and the first letter in comparison is "A" with a code of 65.

Since the difference between these two is greater than the largest possible single digit (0-9), finding the number with which the message is "scrambled" might be a bit too easy 😉

def revealCandyCaneCipher(coded_message):

 shift = ord('C') - ord('@') # based on logical deduction

 decoded_chars = []

 for code in coded_message:

 original_ascii = code - shift

 decoded_chars.append(chr(original_ascii))



 decoded_message = "".join(decoded_chars)

 print(decoded_message) # Print the decoded greeting



# Create coded message

codedMessage = [

 80, 104, 117, 117, 124, 35, 70, 107, 117, 108, 118, 119,

 112, 100, 118, 35, 73, 117, 114, 112, 35, 87, 107, 104,

 35, 70, 114, 103, 104, 105, 114, 117, 120, 112, 35,

 87, 104, 100, 112

]



# Run the decoder

revealCandyCaneCipher(codedMessage)

 

[simong1993]

How did you find the 3 day challange 😀

 

[EkBass]

How did you find the 3 day challange 😀

err...by login in here 😀

 

[simong1993]

err...by login in here 😀

I walked right into that lol