AL2 encoder and decoder

[on:]

If you go to http://64.81.83.79/al2/encode.html  and http://64.81.83.79/al2/decode.html  to find a rudimentary encoder and decoder for AL2.

I will warn you: They don't work on all browsers (including Netscape 4, and possibly IE 4-5 for Windows; they work fine on Netscape 6, IE 5 for Mac, iCab, and Opera), they're ugly as hell, and they're hosted on a server that isn't intended to handle too much bandwidth and therefore may disappear at any time.

You are encouraged to steal the encoder and decoder (written entirely in client-side JavaScript) and improve on them.

[Reply #1 on:]

i still don't understand how this alien language thing works... 

[Reply #2 on:]

The first one's a straight symbol-to-letter substitution. Apparently the second is more involved...

[Reply #3 on:]

ok, if i understood it correctly, its an easy differential code: each symbol stands for a number between 0 and 25. now, the first letter is encoded directly. Say if its a B, the symbol for 1 would be used (cause we satart with 0) if its a C the symbol for 2 is used, etc.
this only applys for the first letter. for the rest, the difference (position-wise in our alphabet) is encoded, so, if your last letter encoded was that B and you want to have a E next, you would encode 3, cause E is 3 letters away from B (B->C->D->E). thats basically it. the only thing needed now is a way to get a letter which is earlier in the alphabet, lets say ... C. for that purpose, our latin alphabet is looked at as a ring (mod 26) so, after Z it starts with A again, now, for the C after our encoded E: 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
so, its 24 letters to go. our encode of BEC would be 1 3 24. those numbers are now substituted for the alien letters according to the chart (or the subset of that, which is known by now) again to form the actual word.
Decoding is similar, first get the numbers for the word which you want to decode, lets say 1 3 24 now, add to each position its left neighbour, starting from the left:
1 4 28 (28 = 24 + 3 + 1) next step: for any number bigger than 25, substract 26 till its smaller than 26: 1 4 2, thats it, look up the letters in the alphabet at those positions (add one to each, cause we start with 0) and you are done: 1->B 4 ->E 2 ->C

if i understood it all wrong, well, go to hell then

[Reply #4 on:]

*echoing clapping*

[Reply #5 on:]

eh, im wrong  not the distance within the alphabet is encoded, just the letters itself adding the value of the last encode. but maybe my differential encode is usefull for AL-X one day