Django Enum¶

Tip

See Migration from 1.x -> 2.x for how to update from 1.x to 2.x.

Full and natural support for enumerations as Django model fields.

Many packages aim to ease usage of Python enumerations as model fields. Most were superseded when Django provided TextChoices and IntegerChoices types. The motivation for django-enum was to:

Work with any Python PEP 435 Enum including those that do not derive from Django’s TextChoices and IntegerChoices.
Coerce fields to instances of the Enum type by default.
Allow strict adherence to Enum values to be disabled.
Handle migrations appropriately. (See Migrations)
Integrate as fully as possible with Django’s existing level of enum support.
Support enum-properties to enable richer enumeration types. (A less awkward alternative to dataclass enumerations with more features)
Represent enum fields with the smallest possible column type.
Support bit mask queries using standard Python Flag enumerations.
Be as simple and light-weight an extension to core Django as possible.
Enforce enumeration value consistency at the database level using check constraints by default.
(TODO) Support native database enumeration column types when available.

django-enum provides a new model field type, EnumField, that allows you to treat almost any PEP 435 enumeration as a database column. EnumField resolves the correct native Django field type for the given enumeration based on its value type and range. For example, IntegerChoices that contain values between 0 and 32767 become PositiveSmallIntegerField.

from django.db import models
from django_enum import EnumField

class MyModel(models.Model):

    class TextEnum(models.TextChoices):

        VALUE0 = 'V0', 'Value 0'
        VALUE1 = 'V1', 'Value 1'
        VALUE2 = 'V2', 'Value 2'

    class IntEnum(models.IntegerChoices):

        ONE   = 1, 'One'
        TWO   = 2, 'Two',
        THREE = 3, 'Three'

    # this is equivalent to:
    #  CharField(max_length=2, choices=TextEnum.choices, null=True, blank=True)
    txt_enum = EnumField(TextEnum, null=True, blank=True)

    # this is equivalent to
    #  PositiveSmallIntegerField(choices=IntEnum.choices, default=IntEnum.ONE.value)
    int_enum = EnumField(IntEnum, default=IntEnum.ONE)

EnumField is more than just an alias. The fields are now assignable and accessible as their enumeration type rather than by-value:

instance = MyModel.objects.create(
    txt_enum=MyModel.TextEnum.VALUE1,
    int_enum=3  # by-value assignment also works
)

assert instance.txt_enum == MyModel.TextEnum('V1')
assert instance.txt_enum.label == 'Value 1'

assert instance.int_enum == MyModel.IntEnum['THREE']
assert instance.int_enum.value == 3

Flag Support¶

Flag types are also seamlessly supported! This allows a database column to behave like a bit mask and is an alternative to multiple boolean columns. There are mostly positive performance implications for using a bit mask instead of booleans depending on the size of the bit mask and the types of queries you will run against it. For bit masks more than a few bits long the size reduction both speeds up queries and reduces the required storage space. See the documentation for discussion and benchmarks.

class Permissions(IntFlag):

    READ = 1**2
    WRITE = 2**2
    EXECUTE = 3**2

class FlagExample(models.Model):

    permissions = EnumField(Permissions)

FlagExample.objects.create(permissions=Permissions.READ | Permissions.WRITE)

# get all models with RW:
FlagExample.objects.filter(permissions__has_all=Permissions.READ | Permissions.WRITE)

Note

The has_all and has_any field lookups are only available for Flag enumerations.

Complex Enumerations¶

django-enum supports enum types that do not derive from Django’s IntegerChoices and TextChoices. This allows us to use other libs like enum-properties which makes possible very rich enumeration fields:

?> pip install enum-properties

from enum_properties import StrEnumProperties
from django.db import models

class TextChoicesExample(models.Model):

    class Color(StrEnumProperties):

        label: Annotated[str, Symmetric()]
        rgb: Annotated[t.Tuple[int, int, int], Symmetric()]
        hex: Annotated[str, Symmetric(case_fold=True)]

        # name value label       rgb       hex
        RED   = "R", "Red",   (1, 0, 0), "ff0000"
        GREEN = "G", "Green", (0, 1, 0), "00ff00"
        BLUE  = "B", "Blue",  (0, 0, 1), "0000ff"

        # any named s() values in the Enum's inheritance become properties on
        # each value, and the enumeration value may be instantiated from the
        # property's value

    color = EnumField(Color)

instance = TextChoicesExample.objects.create(
    color=TextChoicesExample.Color('FF0000')
)
assert instance.color == TextChoicesExample.Color('Red')
assert instance.color == TextChoicesExample.Color('R')
assert instance.color == TextChoicesExample.Color((1, 0, 0))

# direct comparison to any symmetric value also works
assert instance.color == 'Red'
assert instance.color == 'R'
assert instance.color == (1, 0, 0)

# save by any symmetric value
instance.color = 'FF0000'

# access any enum property right from the model field
assert instance.color.hex == 'ff0000'

# this also works!
assert instance.color == 'ff0000'

# and so does this!
assert instance.color == 'FF0000'

instance.save()

# filtering works by any symmetric value or enum type instance
assert TextChoicesExample.objects.filter(
    color=TextChoicesExample.Color.RED
).first() == instance

assert TextChoicesExample.objects.filter(color=(1, 0, 0)).first() == instance

assert TextChoicesExample.objects.filter(color='FF0000').first() == instance

While they should be unnecessary if you need to integrate with code that expects an interface fully compatible with Django’s TextChoices and IntegerChoices django-enum provides TextChoices, IntegerChoices, FlagChoices and FloatChoices types that derive from enum-properties and Django’s Choices. So the above enumeration could also be written:

from django_enum.choices import TextChoices

class Color(TextChoices):

    # label is added as a symmetric property by the base class

    rgb: Annotated[t.Tuple[int, int, int], Symmetric()]
    hex: Annotated[str, Symmetric(case_fold=True)]

    # name value label       rgb       hex
    RED   = "R", "Red",   (1, 0, 0), "ff0000"
    GREEN = "G", "Green", (0, 1, 0), "00ff00"
    BLUE  = "B", "Blue",  (0, 0, 1), "0000ff"

Installation¶

Clone django-enum from GitHub or install a release off PyPI:

?> pip install django-enum

django-enum has several optional dependencies that are not pulled in by default. EnumFields work seamlessly with all Django apps that work with model fields with choices without any additional work. Optional integrations are provided with several popular libraries to extend this basic functionality.

Integrations are provided that leverage enum-properties to make enumerations do more work and to provide extended functionality for django-filter and djangorestframework.

?> pip install enum-properties
?> pip install django-filter
?> pip install djangorestframework

Continuous Integration¶

Like with Django, Postgres is the preferred database for support. The full test suite is run against all combinations of currently supported versions of Django, Python, and Postgres as well as psycopg3 and psycopg2. The other RDBMS supported by Django are also tested including SQLite, MySQL, MariaDB and Oracle. For these RDBMS (with the exception of Oracle), tests are run against the minimum and maximum supported version combinations to maximize coverage breadth.

See the latest test runs for our current test matrix

For Oracle, only the latest version of the free database is tested against the minimum and maximum supported versions of Python, Django and the cx-Oracle driver.

Django Enum¶

Flag Support¶

Complex Enumerations¶

Installation¶

Continuous Integration¶

Further Reading¶