The full code likely looks like this with an alphabet list and is a simple function to implement a Caesar Cipher. I’ve commented the full code below for an explanation of what each line is attempting to do:
alphabet = ["a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f", "g", "h", "i", "j", "k", "l", "m", "n", "o", "p", "q", "r", "s", "t", "u", "v", "w", "x", "y", "z"] # list of letters
def encrypt(plain_text, shift_amount):
cipher_text = "" # setup a blank string
for letter in plain_text: # for each letter in the word you want to encode
position = alphabet.index(letter) # check the numeric position of that letter in the alphabet starting from 0 i.e. a = 0, z = 25 as it starts from 0 not 1
new_position = position + shift_amount # the position is then added to the shift_amount which is called a Caesar cypher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_cipher
new_letter = alphabet[new_position] # use this new 'index' number to get the new character
cipher_text += new_letter # add that new letter to the string and then return to the beginning to get the next letter
print(f"The encoded text is {cipher_text}") # print out the newly "shifted" or encrypted word
encrypt("hello", 1)
# The encoded text is ifmmp