[Python-Dev] PEP 435: initial values must be specified? Yes

[Tim Delaney]

On 6 May 2013 08:55, Eli Bendersky <eliben at gmail.com> wrote:

> 1. That the dictionary returned from <enum metaclass>.__prepare__ provide
> a way to obtain the enum instance names once it's been populated (e.g. once
> it's been passed as the classdict to __new__). The reference implementation
> provides a _enum_names list attribute. The enum names need to be available
> to a metaclass subclass before calling the base metaclass __new__.
>
>> So your preferred solution is (1), which requires exposing the metaclass
>> and an attribute publicly? I have to ask - to what end? What is the goal of
>> this? To have an AutoNumberedEnum which is guaranteed to be compatible with
>> stdlib's Enum?
>>
>
My preferred solution is 1 (for the reason mentioned above) but it does not
require exposing the metaclass publically (that's obtainable via
type(Enum)). It does require a way to get the enum names before calling the
base metaclass __new__, but that does not necessarily imply that I'm
advocating exposing _enum_names (or at least, not directly).

My preferred way would probably be a note that the dictionary returned from
the enum metaclass __prepare__ implements an enum_names() or maybe
__enum_names__() method which returns an iterator over the enum instance
names in definition order. The way this is implemented by the dictionary
would be an implementation detail.

The enum metaclass __new__ needs access to the enum instance names in
definition order, so I think making it easily available to enum metaclass
subclasses as well just makes sense.

Tim Delaney
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