What's the cleanest way to set up an enumeration in Python?

Question

Aryan Kumar · Answer

There are two ways to set up an enumeration in Python:

Subclassing the Enum class. This is the most common way to create an enumeration in Python. To do this, you simply subclass the Enum class and define the members of the enumeration. For example, the following code defines an enumeration called Color:

Python

from enum import Enum

class Color(Enum):
  RED = 1
  GREEN = 2
  BLUE = 3

Using the functional API. The Enum class also provides a functional API that you can use to create enumerations without using the usual class syntax. For example, the following code defines an enumeration called Color using the functional API:

Python

from enum import Enum

Color = Enum('Color', 'RED GREEN BLUE')

The functional API is a bit more concise, but it is less flexible than subclassing the Enum class.

Here are some of the benefits of using enumerations in Python:

Enumerations are a way to represent a set of named constants.
Enumerations are type-safe, which means that you can be sure that the values of an enumeration are always valid.
Enumerations are easy to use and to read.

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