🔐 Decoding a Secret Message from a Google Doc

This project solves a coding exercise where the goal is to decode a visual message hidden in a grid of Unicode characters and coordinates retrieved from a Google Docs URL.

🧩 Problem Description

You are provided with a Google Doc containing lines that each specify:

• A Unicode character,
• Its x and y grid coordinates.

Your task is to write a Python function that:

1. Downloads and parses the data,
2. Builds a character grid based on the coordinates,
3. Prints out the message formed when the grid is rendered in a fixed-width font.

Empty grid positions are filled with spaces. The grid size is determined dynamically based on the largest x and y coordinates.

📝 Assumptions

• All characters follow the format: <CHARACTER><X><Y>, such as A23.
• Coordinates start from (0, 0).
• The document format remains consistent.

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🚀 How It Works

Main Function: message_decoder(url)

1. Downloads the text content from the provided URL using the requests library.
2. Uses regular expressions to extract all matching character-coordinate patterns.
3. Determines the grid size based on the maximum x and y values.
4. Initializes an empty 2D grid filled with spaces.
5. Populates the grid with characters at their respective coordinates.
6. Converts the grid into a printable message.

Optional Helper: clean_message(decoded_msg)

This helper extracts and prints only uppercase letters from the decoded grid to highlight the hidden message.

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🧪 Example Usage

$ python message_decoder.py
Enter or copy and paste the URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/your-example-id
decoded message:
F    
F    
FFF  
F    
F    

F
F
F
F
F

📂 Files

• message_decoder.py: Contains the complete Python code.
• README.md: This file.

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💻 Technologies Used

• Python 3.x
• requests library
• re module (regular expressions)

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📦 Installation

Download the python script and open it into your prefered compiler or notebook but colab is recommended because the script was coded on it

Install dependencies if using offline compiler

pip install requests

Run the script

python message_decoder.py

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🔧 Sample Code Snippet

patterns = re.findall(r"([^\s\d])(\d)(\d)", url_from_response)

This extracts patterns like A23, where:

• A is the character
• 2 is the x-coordinate
• 3 is the y-coordinate

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👤 Author

NDIVHUWO MUNYAI

• 📧 nmunyai11@gmail.com
• 🔗 https://github.com/DataCrafter20
• 🔗 https://linkedin.com/in/ndivhuwo-munyai-390a58337

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.