A really simple Caesar Cipher in Bash (or Shell) using `tr`, can also easily be adjusted to encrypt/decrypt ROT13 instead.

caesar-cipher.sh

# Caesar cipher encoding
echo "THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG" | tr '[A-Z]' '[X-ZA-W]'
# output: QEB NRFZH YOLTK CLU GRJMP LSBO QEB IXWV ALD

# Caesar cipher decoding
echo "QEB NRFZH YOLTK CLU GRJMP LSBO QEB IXWV ALD" | tr '[X-ZA-W]' '[A-Z]'
# output: THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG


# Can also be adjusted to ROT13 instead
echo "THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG" | tr '[A-Z]' '[N-ZA-M]'
# output: GUR DHVPX OEBJA SBK WHZCF BIRE GUR YNML QBT

echo "GUR DHVPX OEBJA SBK WHZCF BIRE GUR YNML QBT" | tr '[N-ZA-M]' '[A-Z]'
# output: THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG


# Case-sensitive version of ROT13
tr '[A-Za-z]' '[N-ZA-Mn-za-m]'

when I use the brackets it doesn't work so I just put "tr a-z x-za-w" from a video I saw on youtube, but my real question is why do I need to use ZA between n-(ZA)-m or between any substitution? what does it mean since it looks like tr pulls the substitution from the first syntax why not just "tr a-z n-m"

when I use the brackets it doesn't work so I just put "tr a-z x-za-w" from a video I saw on youtube, but my real question is why do I need to use ZA between n-(ZA)-m or between any substitution? what does it mean since it looks like tr pulls the substitution from the first syntax why not just "tr a-z n-m"

@Lusca-Rato

az are respectively the upper and lower bounds of character ranges. For more information, you may like to do some light reading on regex syntax.