在Java pre-JDK 5中使用的类型安全枚举模式有一个 优势的数量。就像Alexandru的回答一样，你创建了一个 类和类级别字段是枚举值;然而，枚举 值是类的实例，而不是小整数。这已经 优点是枚举值不会在不经意间比较相等 对于小整数，你可以控制它们的打印方式，任意添加 方法(如果有用的话)，并使用isinstance进行断言:

class Animal:
   def __init__(self, name):
       self.name = name

   def __str__(self):
       return self.name

   def __repr__(self):
       return "<Animal: %s>" % self

Animal.DOG = Animal("dog")
Animal.CAT = Animal("cat")

>>> x = Animal.DOG
>>> x
<Animal: dog>
>>> x == 1
False

python-dev上最近的一个线程指出，在野外有几个枚举库，包括:

flufl.enum lazr.enum ．.． 和富有想象力的enum

为了解码二进制文件格式，我曾经需要一个Enum类。我碰巧想要的特性是简洁的枚举定义，通过整数值或字符串自由创建枚举实例的能力，以及有用的表示。这是我最后得出的结论:

>>> class Enum(int):
...     def __new__(cls, value):
...         if isinstance(value, str):
...             return getattr(cls, value)
...         elif isinstance(value, int):
...             return cls.__index[value]
...     def __str__(self): return self.__name
...     def __repr__(self): return "%s.%s" % (type(self).__name__, self.__name)
...     class __metaclass__(type):
...         def __new__(mcls, name, bases, attrs):
...             attrs['__slots__'] = ['_Enum__name']
...             cls = type.__new__(mcls, name, bases, attrs)
...             cls._Enum__index = _index = {}
...             for base in reversed(bases):
...                 if hasattr(base, '_Enum__index'):
...                     _index.update(base._Enum__index)
...             # create all of the instances of the new class
...             for attr in attrs.keys():
...                 value = attrs[attr]
...                 if isinstance(value, int):
...                     evalue = int.__new__(cls, value)
...                     evalue._Enum__name = attr
...                     _index[value] = evalue
...                     setattr(cls, attr, evalue)
...             return cls
... 

使用它的一个异想天开的例子:

>>> class Citrus(Enum):
...     Lemon = 1
...     Lime = 2
... 
>>> Citrus.Lemon
Citrus.Lemon
>>> 
>>> Citrus(1)
Citrus.Lemon
>>> Citrus(5)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 6, in __new__
KeyError: 5
>>> class Fruit(Citrus):
...     Apple = 3
...     Banana = 4
... 
>>> Fruit.Apple
Fruit.Apple
>>> Fruit.Lemon
Citrus.Lemon
>>> Fruit(1)
Citrus.Lemon
>>> Fruit(3)
Fruit.Apple
>>> "%d %s %r" % ((Fruit.Apple,)*3)
'3 Apple Fruit.Apple'
>>> Fruit(1) is Citrus.Lemon
True

主要特点:

str()， int()和repr()都会产生最有用的输出，分别是枚举的名称，它的整数值，以及返回枚举的Python表达式。 构造函数返回的枚举值严格限制为预定义值，没有意外的枚举值。 枚举值是单例的;它们可以与之严格比较

这是我见过的最好的一个:“Python中的First Class Enums”

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/413486/

It gives you a class, and the class contains all the enums. The enums can be compared to each other, but don't have any particular value; you can't use them as an integer value. (I resisted this at first because I am used to C enums, which are integer values. But if you can't use it as an integer, you can't use it as an integer by mistake so overall I think it is a win.) Each enum is a unique value. You can print enums, you can iterate over them, you can test that an enum value is "in" the enum. It's pretty complete and slick.

编辑(cfi):上面的链接不兼容Python 3。下面是我将枚举.py移植到Python 3的端口:

def cmp(a,b):
   if a < b: return -1
   if b < a: return 1
   return 0


def Enum(*names):
   ##assert names, "Empty enums are not supported" # <- Don't like empty enums? Uncomment!

   class EnumClass(object):
      __slots__ = names
      def __iter__(self):        return iter(constants)
      def __len__(self):         return len(constants)
      def __getitem__(self, i):  return constants[i]
      def __repr__(self):        return 'Enum' + str(names)
      def __str__(self):         return 'enum ' + str(constants)

   class EnumValue(object):
      __slots__ = ('__value')
      def __init__(self, value): self.__value = value
      Value = property(lambda self: self.__value)
      EnumType = property(lambda self: EnumType)
      def __hash__(self):        return hash(self.__value)
      def __cmp__(self, other):
         # C fans might want to remove the following assertion
         # to make all enums comparable by ordinal value {;))
         assert self.EnumType is other.EnumType, "Only values from the same enum are comparable"
         return cmp(self.__value, other.__value)
      def __lt__(self, other):   return self.__cmp__(other) < 0
      def __eq__(self, other):   return self.__cmp__(other) == 0
      def __invert__(self):      return constants[maximum - self.__value]
      def __nonzero__(self):     return bool(self.__value)
      def __repr__(self):        return str(names[self.__value])

   maximum = len(names) - 1
   constants = [None] * len(names)
   for i, each in enumerate(names):
      val = EnumValue(i)
      setattr(EnumClass, each, val)
      constants[i] = val
   constants = tuple(constants)
   EnumType = EnumClass()
   return EnumType


if __name__ == '__main__':
   print( '\n*** Enum Demo ***')
   print( '--- Days of week ---')
   Days = Enum('Mo', 'Tu', 'We', 'Th', 'Fr', 'Sa', 'Su')
   print( Days)
   print( Days.Mo)
   print( Days.Fr)
   print( Days.Mo < Days.Fr)
   print( list(Days))
   for each in Days:
      print( 'Day:', each)
   print( '--- Yes/No ---')
   Confirmation = Enum('No', 'Yes')
   answer = Confirmation.No
   print( 'Your answer is not', ~answer)

我通常使用的解决方案是这个简单的函数来获取动态创建的类的实例。

def enum(names):
    "Create a simple enumeration having similarities to C."
    return type('enum', (), dict(map(reversed, enumerate(
        names.replace(',', ' ').split())), __slots__=()))()

使用它非常简单，只需使用包含想要引用的名称的字符串调用函数即可。

grade = enum('A B C D F')
state = enum('awake, sleeping, dead')

这些值只是整数，因此如果需要可以利用它(就像在C语言中一样)。

>>> grade.A
0
>>> grade.B
1
>>> grade.F == 4
True
>>> state.dead == 2
True

下面是亚历克·托马斯解决方案的一个变种:

def enum(*args, **kwargs):
    return type('Enum', (), dict((y, x) for x, y in enumerate(args), **kwargs)) 

x = enum('POOH', 'TIGGER', 'EEYORE', 'ROO', 'PIGLET', 'RABBIT', 'OWL')
assert x.POOH == 0
assert x.TIGGER == 1

枚举已按照PEP 435中的描述添加到Python 3.4。它还被反向移植到pypi上的3.3、3.2、3.1、2.7、2.6、2.5和2.4。

对于更高级的Enum技术，请尝试aenum库(2.7,3.3+，与enum34是同一作者)。py2和py3之间的代码并不完全兼容，例如，你需要在python 2中使用__order__)。

要使用enum34，执行$ pip install enum34 要使用aenum，执行$ pip install aenum

安装enum(没有编号)将安装一个完全不同且不兼容的版本。

from enum import Enum     # for enum34, or the stdlib version
# from aenum import Enum  # for the aenum version
Animal = Enum('Animal', 'ant bee cat dog')

Animal.ant  # returns <Animal.ant: 1>
Animal['ant']  # returns <Animal.ant: 1> (string lookup)
Animal.ant.name  # returns 'ant' (inverse lookup)

或者说:

class Animal(Enum):
    ant = 1
    bee = 2
    cat = 3
    dog = 4

在早期版本中，完成枚举的一种方法是:

def enum(**enums):
    return type('Enum', (), enums)

是这样使用的:

>>> Numbers = enum(ONE=1, TWO=2, THREE='three')
>>> Numbers.ONE
1
>>> Numbers.TWO
2
>>> Numbers.THREE
'three'

你也可以很容易地支持自动枚举，就像这样:

def enum(*sequential, **named):
    enums = dict(zip(sequential, range(len(sequential))), **named)
    return type('Enum', (), enums)

并像这样使用:

>>> Numbers = enum('ZERO', 'ONE', 'TWO')
>>> Numbers.ZERO
0
>>> Numbers.ONE
1

支持将值转换回名称可以这样添加:

def enum(*sequential, **named):
    enums = dict(zip(sequential, range(len(sequential))), **named)
    reverse = dict((value, key) for key, value in enums.iteritems())
    enums['reverse_mapping'] = reverse
    return type('Enum', (), enums)

这将覆盖带有该名称的任何内容，但对于在输出中呈现枚举非常有用。如果反向映射不存在，它将抛出一个KeyError。第一个例子:

>>> Numbers.reverse_mapping['three']
'THREE'

如果你使用MyPy，另一种表达“枚举”的方式是typing.Literal。

例如:

from typing import Literal #python >=3.8
from typing_extensions import Literal #python 2.7, 3.4-3.7


Animal = Literal['ant', 'bee', 'cat', 'dog']

def hello_animal(animal: Animal):
    print(f"hello {animal}")

hello_animal('rock') # error
hello_animal('bee') # passes