Python Enums

Enums are readable names that are bound to a constant value.

To use enums, import Enum from the enum standard library module:

from enum import Enum

Then you can initialize a new enum in this way:

class State(Enum):
    INACTIVE = 0
    ACTIVE = 1

Once you do so, you can reference State.INACTIVE and State.ACTIVE, and they serve as constants.

Now if you try to print State.ACTIVE for example:

print(State.ACTIVE)

it will not return 1, but State.ACTIVE.

The same value can be reached by the number assigned in the enum: print(State(1)) will return State.ACTIVE. Same for using the square brackets notation State['ACTIVE'].

You can however get the value using State.ACTIVE.value.

You can list all the possible values of an enum:

list(State) # [<State.INACTIVE: 0>, <State.ACTIVE: 1>]

You can count them:

len(State) # 2