[Python-ideas] Enums

[Ben Finney]

Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> writes:

> These could be two separate features. Named values could be a building
> block for a built-in Enum type -- the named value would take care of
> the str() and repr(), while the Enum type would only have to take care
> of the nice syntax ("class Color(Enum): red = 1; ...") and just create
> a bunch of named values in the class scope.

+1.

As for EnumValue instances having a defined order, thanks to my reading
of <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_type> I can now say that
some of us want an enumerated type that is not ordinal, and others want
an ordinal type.

And non-ordinal enumerated types, built-in, could then further be used
as the basis for a custom ordinal type.

Hence:

* a built-in “named value” feature

* a built-in, or standard-library, non-ordinal enumerated type feature
  (using the “named value” feature)

* a standard-library ordinal type feature
  (using the enumerated type feature)

Would that make us all happy?

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Ben Finney