Kevin Michael Brownfield

Password generators are essential tools in today’s world of online security. They help create strong, unique passwords that are difficult to guess or crack. With the increasing number of data breaches and cyber attacks, it’s important to have secure passwords to protect your online identity and personal information.

In the real world, you would use a password generator to create a new password for an online account, reset an existing password, or simply create a strong password for a new account. The password generated should be unique and not easily guessable by hackers.

This exercise of creating a password generator in Python teaches novice programmers the basics of coding with Python, including lists, functions, randomization, and string manipulation. By the end of this exercise, you will have a good understanding of how to use Python to generate a secure password.

Let’s start by creating a simple password generator that generates a password with a fixed number of letters, symbols, and numbers.

import random
letters = ['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', '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']
numbers = ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9']
symbols = ['!', '#', '$', '%', '&', '(', ')', '*', '+']

print("Welcome to the PyPassword Generator!")
nr_letters= int(input("How many letters would you like in your password?\n")) 
nr_symbols = int(input(f"How many symbols would you like?\n"))
nr_numbers = int(input(f"How many numbers would you like?\n"))

password = random.choices(letters, k=nr_letters) + random.choices(symbols, k=nr_symbols) + random.choices(numbers, k=nr_numbers)
print("".join(password))

This script uses the random.choices() function to randomly select a set of characters from the letters, symbols, and numbers lists. The number of characters selected from each list is determined by the user input.

Next, we will create a password generator that generates a password with a randomized order of letters, symbols, and numbers.

import random
letters = ['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', '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']
numbers = ['0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9']
symbols = ['!', '#', '$', '%', '&', '(', ')', '*', '+']

print("Welcome to the PyPassword Generator!")
nr_letters = int(input("How many letters would you like in your password?\n")) 
nr_symbols = int(input("How many symbols would you like?\n"))
nr_numbers = int(input("How many numbers would you like?\n"))

password = random.choices(letters, k=nr_letters) + random.choices(symbols, k=nr_symbols) + random.choices(numbers, k=nr_numbers)
random.shuffle(password)

print("".join(password))

In this script, we use the random.choices() function to randomly select a set of characters from the letters, symbols, and numbers lists. The number of characters selected from each list is determined by the user input. Then, the random.shuffle() function is used to shuffle the list of characters randomly. Finally, the join() method is used to join the list of characters into a single string, which is the generated password.

In conclusion, password generators are essential tools for ensuring secure passwords in the real world. With the help of Python, you can easily create your own password generator that can generate strong, randomized passwords that protect your sensitive information. Whether you are a novice programmer or a seasoned expert, creating a password generator is an excellent exercise that teaches you the basics of Python and the power of randomization. So don’t wait, start writing your own password generator today and keep your information secure!