How can I represent an 'Enum' in Python?

Answer 1

What I use:

class Enum(object):
    def __init__(self, names, separator=None):
        self.names = names.split(separator)
        for value, name in enumerate(self.names):
            setattr(self, name.upper(), value)
    def tuples(self):
        return tuple(enumerate(self.names))

How to use:

>>> state = Enum('draft published retracted')
>>> state.DRAFT
0
>>> state.RETRACTED
2
>>> state.FOO
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "", line 1, in 
AttributeError: 'Enum' object has no attribute 'FOO'
>>> state.tuples()
((0, 'draft'), (1, 'published'), (2, 'retracted'))

So this gives you integer constants like state.PUBLISHED and the two-tuples to use as choices in Django models.