I have had occasion to need of an Enum class, for the purpose of decoding a binary file format. The features I happened to want is concise enum definition, the ability to freely create instances of the enum by either integer value or string, and a useful representation. Here's what I ended up with:
>>> class Enum(int):
... def __new__(cls, value):
... if isinstance(value, str):
... return getattr(cls, value)
... elif isinstance(value, int):
... return cls.__index[value]
... def __str__(self): return self.__name
... def __repr__(self): return "%s.%s" % (type(self).__name__, self.__name)
... class __metaclass__(type):
... def __new__(mcls, name, bases, attrs):
... attrs['__slots__'] = ['_Enum__name']
... cls = type.__new__(mcls, name, bases, attrs)
... cls._Enum__index = _index = {}
... for base in reversed(bases):
... if hasattr(base, '_Enum__index'):
... _index.update(base._Enum__index)
... # create all of the instances of the new class
... for attr in attrs.keys():
... value = attrs[attr]
... if isinstance(value, int):
... evalue = int.__new__(cls, value)
... evalue._Enum__name = attr
... _index[value] = evalue
... setattr(cls, attr, evalue)
... return cls
...
A whimsical example of using it:
>>> class Citrus(Enum):
... Lemon = 1
... Lime = 2
...
>>> Citrus.Lemon
Citrus.Lemon
>>>
>>> Citrus(1)
Citrus.Lemon
>>> Citrus(5)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in
File "", line 6, in __new__
KeyError: 5
>>> class Fruit(Citrus):
... Apple = 3
... Banana = 4
...
>>> Fruit.Apple
Fruit.Apple
>>> Fruit.Lemon
Citrus.Lemon
>>> Fruit(1)
Citrus.Lemon
>>> Fruit(3)
Fruit.Apple
>>> "%d %s %r" % ((Fruit.Apple,)*3)
'3 Apple Fruit.Apple'
>>> Fruit(1) is Citrus.Lemon
True
Key features:
str(), int() and repr() all produce the most useful output possible, respectively the name of the enumartion, its integer value, and a Python expression that evaluates back to the enumeration.- Enumerated values returned by the constructor are limited strictly to the predefined values, no accidental enum values.
- Enumerated values are singletons; they can be strictly compared with
is
