There are already some great answers here. Like they said, the input is base64 encoded. Here I have decoded it using Python's base64 module. import base64 base64_str = "MDExMDEwMDEgMDExMDAxMTAgMDEwMTExMTEgMDExMTEwMDEgMDAxMTAwMDAgMDExMTAxMDEgMDEwMTExMTEgMDExMDAwMTEgMDEwMDAwMDAgMDExMDExMTAgMDEwMTExMTEgMDAxMDAxMDAgMDExMDExMDEgMDAxMTAwMTEgMDExMDExMDAgMDExMDExMDAgMDEwMTExMTEgMDExMTAxMTEgMDExMDEwMDAgMDEwMDAwMDAgMDExMTAxMDAgMDEwMTExMTEgMDExMTAxMDAgMDExMDEwMDAgMDAxMTAwMTEgMDEwMTExMTEgMDExMTAwMTAgMDAxMTAwMDAgMDExMDAwMTEgMDExMDEwMTEgMDEwMTExMTEgMDExMDEwMDEgMDExMTAwMTEgMDEwMTExMTEgMDExMDAwMTEgMDAxMTAwMDAgMDAxMTAwMDAgMDExMDEwMTEgMDExMDEwMDEgMDExMDExMTAgMDExMDAxMTE=" bin_to_str = '' . join (base64.b64decode(base64_str).decode( 'utf-8' ). split ()) print ( '' . join ( chr ( int (bin_to_str[i:i+ 8 ], 2 )) for i in range( 0 , len(bin_to_str), 8 ))) # if_y0u_c@n_$m3ll_wh@t_th3_r0ck_is_c00king Hope that helps :)

Have you read Effective Python by Brett Slatkin? I think you're at the stage where that book will level up your skills.

I'm a Python enthusiast. My GitHub repo pynotes has a couple sets of Python exercises which I created out of my own answers at Stack Overflow and Code Review SE. Those who have learned basics of Python and need more practice may find them useful. The repo also has solutions to the exercises. Happy coding :)

If you are just starting off with Python as your first language, take a look at these books: Automate the Boring Stuff with Python , Python Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming, and also the official The Python Tutorial . Keep visiting the r/learnpython and r/python subreddits. As you go on learning programming with Python, try solving exercises at the end of each chapter in the above books and when you need help with your code, ask a question here, get it answered, and move on. Practice writing code on a regular basis until you get the hang of it. Shameless plug: I've created a couple sets of exercises for those familiar with Python basics: pynotes . All the best.

permutations = list(permutations(word, int(num))) By using permutations as the name of a variable, the code is masking the class permutations in module itertools . Try help(permutations) in your Python Shell. You will get Help on list object, not Help on class permutations in module itertools . I would pass a prompt to input() and rename the variable which is set to the permutations: word, num = input( "Enter a word and an integer with a space in between: " ).split( " " ) perms = list (permutations(word, int (num))) perms.sorted() As you can see, you have tuples of permutations in the list perms which is sorted in-place. Now let's see what's happening with the code below: [print("".join(i)) for i in perms] That is a list comprehension , a concise way to create lists. "".join(i) concatenates the strings in each tuple of the list. print("".join(i)) prints the above concatenation to sys.stdout . Of note, the print() function returns None . Once print() is done printing, on each call it returns None , so all that the list has are None s. I would rewrite the code, like so: from itertools import permutations user_input = input( "Enter a word and an integer with a space in between: " ) word, num = user_input. split ( " " ) perms = list(permutations(word, int (num))) perms. sort () for perm in perms: print ( "" . join (perm)) If you want to be able to reuse the list, you could assign it to a variable: perms_catted = ["".join(perm) for perm in perms] Hope that helps.