Enumerations¶

Enumerations or Enums are a way to manage strictly defined states. They avoid ambiguities and accidental bugs when using standard data types.

Defining an Enum¶

An Enum is defined by calling the Enum as a function with the possible states as as a list:

TrafficLight = Enum('TrafficLight', ["RED", "AMBER", "GREEN"])

Alternatively you can define an Enum as a subclass, with the possible states as attributes:

from enum import Enum

class TrafficLight(Enum):
    RED = 1
    AMBER = 2
    GREEN = 3

To use the states in an Enum, assign it to a state variable:

a = TrafficLight.RED

Then compare values to another state:

print(a is TrafficLight.GREEN)
print(a TrafficLight.RED)

Also try:

print(TrafficLight.RED.name)
print(TrafficLight.RED == 1)

iterating over an Enum gives you all states:

for x in TrafficLight:
    print(x)