How can I represent an 'Enum' in Python?

Answer 1

The enum package from PyPI provides a robust implementation of enums. An earlier answer mentioned PEP 354; this was rejected but the proposal was implemented http://pypi.python.org/pypi/enum.

Usage is easy and elegant:

>>> from enum import Enum
>>> Colors = Enum('red', 'blue', 'green')
>>> shirt_color = Colors.green
>>> shirt_color = Colors[2]
>>> shirt_color > Colors.red
True
>>> shirt_color.index
2
>>> str(shirt_color)
'green'