a bytxor in pythones-like object is required, not 'str'
def xor_crypt_string(data, key = 'awesomepassword', encode = False, decode = False):
from itertools import izip, cycle
import base64
if decode:
data = base64.decodestring(data)
xored = ''.join(chr(ord(x) ^ ord(y)) for (x,y) in izip(data, cycle(key)))
if encode:
return base64.encodestring(xored).strip()
return xored
secret_data = "XOR procedure"
print("The cipher text is")
print xor_crypt_string(secret_data, encode = True)
print("The plain text fetched")
print xor_crypt_string(xor_crypt_string(secret_data, encode = True), decode = True)