blog/walrus-hunting-with-strenum

[utterances-bot]

Walrus Hunting with StrEnum | The When of Python Blog

The Walrus operator finally seemed to have found a practical use case - as a way to make collections of strings or integers without as much boiler plate as the alternative without the operator. But Python has a better approach already - Enum - and in Python 3.11 it is even easier to use with strings (StrEnum). So the Walrus operator still struggles to find a problem for which it is the best solution.

https://when-of-python.github.io/blog/walrus-hunting-with-strenum.html

[nathanjmcdougall]

A digression: while I would certainly prefer enum.StrEnum to the use of the Walrus Operator in this case, I do find it a bit annoying that there are multiple ways of getting string-enums in Python.

Just take a look at some of the tables of differences in PEP663 to get an idea of the subtleties you need to consider based on the different options available. I feel it is a similar (although less severe) situation to where there are multiple ways to obtain dataclasses/named-tuples.

Personally, in the past I've used double-inheritance with str, and enum.Enum which PEP663 calls "user-mixed enums". I would probably just recommend everyone use StrEnum from now on, but I feel that generally people are not ready to have their codebase rely on 3.11+ features. I suppose really what I take issue with is that StrEnum was accepted too late in Python's life. So for now I'm going to continue to just use base Enum mixed with str, rather enum.StrEnum.

[grantps]

Thanks for that Nathan. I also rely heavily on user-mixed enums and look forward to being able to switch over to StrEnum in all my production code. StrEnum will be easier to teach as well.

[grantps]

I found this article valuable: Build Enumerations of Constants With Python's Enum. Amongst other things it has a summary of the value of enums - my favourites are:

Allowing for conveniently grouping related constants in a sort of namespace
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Providing quick and flexible access to enum members
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Facilitating code completion within IDEs and editors
Enabling type and error checking with static checkers
...