🧩 Python Enums: Making Code More Readable

Have you ever written code with mysterious numbers like this?

status = 1  # What does 1 mean here?

Imagine coming back to that code months later… Will you remember what 1 stood for? Probably not.

That’s where Enums come in! They let you give names to your values — names that actually mean something.

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🚀 What is an Enum?

An Enum (short for “enumeration”) is a way to give a name to a constant value. So instead of saying 1, you can say State.ACTIVE — which is easier to read and understand.

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🛠️ How to Create an Enum

To use Enums, you first need to import them:

from enum import Enum

Then, you define a class like this:

class State(Enum):
    INACTIVE = 0
    ACTIVE = 1

Now you can use State.INACTIVE and State.ACTIVE in your code — they’re like smart constants!

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🎯 Using the Enum

Let’s see how it behaves:

print(State.ACTIVE)   # Output: State.ACTIVE (not 1)
print(State.INACTIVE) # Output: State.INACTIVE

Even though ACTIVE has the value 1, printing State.ACTIVE gives you the name, not the number.

But don’t worry — you can still get the actual value like this:

print(State.ACTIVE.value)  # Output: 1

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🔄 Accessing Enums in Different Ways

You can also use the value or the name to get the Enum:

print(State(1))          # Output: State.ACTIVE
print(State['ACTIVE'])   # Output: State.ACTIVE

Handy, right?

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📋 List All Enums

Want to see all the states?

print(list(State))
# Output: [<State.INACTIVE: 0>, <State.ACTIVE: 1>]

And to count how many states there are:

print(len(State))  # Output: 2

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🧠 Why Use Enums?

• Clearer code: State.ACTIVE is better than 1
• Fewer bugs: You can’t accidentally use the wrong number
• Easy to read and maintain

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📝 Practice Time!

Try these to test your understanding:

1. Create an enum called Color with values RED = 1, GREEN = 2, and BLUE = 3.
2. Print Color.GREEN and Color.GREEN.value.
3. Use the value 3 to get the matching enum from Color.
4. Use the name 'RED' to get the matching enum from Color.
5. Print a list of all values in the Color enum and count how many colors there are.

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