I'm relatively new to Python and I was interested in finding out the simplest way to create an enumeration.
The best I've found is something like:
(APPLE, BANANA, WALRUS) = range(3) Which sets APPLE to 0, BANANA to 1, etc.
But I'm wondering if there's a simpler way.
Enums were added in python 3.4 (docs). See PEP 0435 for details.
If you are on python 2.x, there exists a backport on pypi.
pip install enum34 Your usage example is most similar to the python enum's functional API:
>>> from enum import Enum >>> MyEnum = Enum('MyEnum', 'APPLE BANANA WALRUS') >>> MyEnum.BANANA <MyEnum.BANANA: 2> However, this is a more typical usage example:
class MyEnum(Enum): apple = 1 banana = 2 walrus = 3 You can also use an IntEnum if you need enum instances to compare equal with integers, but I don't recommend this unless there is a good reason you need that behaviour.
You can use this. Although slightly longer, much more readable and flexible.
from enum import Enum class Fruits(Enum): APPLE = 1 BANANA = 2 WALRUS = 3 Edit : Python 3.4
Enum initializer: Fruits = Enum('Fruits', 'APPLE BANANA WALRUS').
APPLE=654, BANANA = 980 and so on..?Fruits = Enum('Fruits', dict(APPLE=62, BANANA=980))Using enumerate
In [4]: list(enumerate(('APPLE', 'BANANA', 'WALRUS'),1)) Out[4]: [(1, 'APPLE'), (2, 'BANANA'), (3, 'WALRUS')] The answer by noob should've been like this
In [13]: from enum import Enum In [14]: Fruit=Enum('Fruit', 'APPLE BANANA WALRUS') enum values are distinct from integers.
In [15]: Fruit.APPLE Out[15]: <Fruit.APPLE: 1> In [16]: Fruit.BANANA Out[16]: <Fruit.BANANA: 2> In [17]: Fruit.WALRUS Out[17]: <Fruit.WALRUS: 3> As in your question using range is a better option.
In [18]: APPLE,BANANA,WALRUS=range(1,4) You can use dict as well:
d = { 1: 'APPLE', 2: 'BANANA', 3: 'WALRUS' } 
a = ('APPLE', 'BANANA', 'WALRUS') You can create a list of tuples using enumerate to get the desired output.
list(enumerate(a, start=1)) [(1, 'APPLE'), (2, 'BANANA'), (3, 'WALRUS')] If you need 'APPLE' first and then 1, then you can do the following:
[(j, i +1 ) for i, j in enumerate(a)] [('APPLE', 1), ('BANANA', 2), ('WALRUS', 3)] Also, you can create a dictionary using enumerate to get the desired output.
dict(enumerate(a, start=1)) {1: 'APPLE', 2: 'BANANA', 3: 'WALRUS'} 
