[Python-Dev] PEP 435 -- Adding an Enum type to the Python standard library

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Sun Apr 21 13:02:13 CEST 2013


Barry Warsaw wrote:
> On Apr 13, 2013, at 12:51 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

>>class Insect(Enum):
>>    wasp = wsap = 1
>>    bee = 2
>>    ant = 3
>>
>>What's the justification for this restriction? I have looked in the PEP, and
>>didn't see one.
> 
> If you allowed this, there would be no way to look up an enumeration item by
> value.  This is necessary for e.g. storing the value in a database.

Hm. What you really want there isn't two enum objects with
the same value, but two names bound to the same enum object.
Then looking it up by value would not be a problem.

-- 
Greg


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