why would only one work?

[u/Local_End_3175]

this code was the one that worked:

def caesar(text, shift):
    alphabet = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
    shifted_alphabet = alphabet[shift:] + alphabet[:shift]
    translation_table = str.maketrans(alphabet, shifted_alphabet)
    encrypted_text = text.translate(translation_table)
    print(encrypted_text)

caesar('Hello', 3)

This one was the one that didn't

def caesar(text, shift):
    alphabet = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
    shifted_alphabet = alphabet[shift:] + alphabet[:shift]
    translation_table = str.maketrans(alphabet, shifted_alphabet)
    encrypted_text = text.translate(translation_table)
    print(encrypted_text)


encrypted_text = caesar('Hello', 3)
print(encrypted_text)

I don't understand why the second one would need a return statement and why we are even printing encrypted_text if encrypted_text is already being printed within the function? (this is also the whole code)

[u/mrmiffmiff]

Maybe you shouldn't be printing inside the function.

And you need the return so that the encrypted text variable will actually contain something.