RC4

Category: Ciphers

Status: Registered and callable in the CyberChef 11.3.0 compatibility inventory.

Input / output: string → string

Background: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/RC4

What it does

RC4 (also known as ARC4) is a widely-used stream cipher designed by Ron Rivest. It is used in popular protocols such as SSL and WEP. Although remarkable for its simplicity and speed, the algorithm’s history doesn’t inspire confidence in its security.

Note

Status here means the operation name is implemented and callable. It does not by itself promise byte-for-byte parity for every upstream option. See Compatibility and current status for the verified scope and known boundaries.

Arguments and options

Arguments are positional. Keep their order when using bake() or Pipeline.then().

Index	Name	UI type	PyChef default	Accepted values / format
`0`	Passphrase	`toggleString`	`{'string': '', 'option': 'UTF8'}`	`''`
`1`	Input format	`option`	`'Latin1'`	`'Latin1'`, `'UTF8'`, `'UTF16'`, `'UTF16LE'`, `'UTF16BE'`, `'Hex'`, `'Base64'`
`2`	Output format	`option`	`'Latin1'`	`'Latin1'`, `'UTF8'`, `'UTF16'`, `'UTF16LE'`, `'UTF16BE'`, `'Hex'`, `'Base64'`

Recipe template

Important

This is a call template built from the documented defaults. Replace placeholder values such as empty keys, paths, patterns, or lookup data before running it.

from pychef import bake

input_value = "example"
args = [{'string': '', 'option': 'UTF8'}, 'Latin1', 'Latin1']
result = bake(input_value, [{"op": 'RC4', "args": args}])
print(result)

Pipeline example

from pychef import Pipeline

args = [{'string': '', 'option': 'UTF8'}, 'Latin1', 'Latin1']
transform = Pipeline().then('RC4', *args)
result = transform("example")

Direct call

pychef.ops.run_operation runs any registered operation as a plain function, under the active ExecutionPolicy (safe defaults, no network):

from pychef.ops import run_operation

args = [{'string': '', 'option': 'UTF8'}, 'Latin1', 'Latin1']
result = run_operation('RC4', "example", args=args)

Common operations also have typed helpers in Direct operations.

Low-level operation module

Warning

The module below is an internal implementation detail. It applies no execution policy, resource limits, or error sanitization; prefer bake(), Pipeline, or pychef.ops for application code.

The registered entry point lives in pychef.operations.by_operation.rc4. Direct calls receive the input value and a positional argument tuple:

from pychef.operations.by_operation.rc4 import run

result = run("example", tuple([{'string': '', 'option': 'UTF8'}, 'Latin1', 'Latin1']))

pychef.operations.by_operation.rc4.run(value, args)

Run this operation using its shared internal implementation.

Parameters:

value (str | bytes)
args (Sequence[Any])

Return type:

str | bytes