Booleans have two possible values. Are there types that have three possible values?
Question:
Possible Duplicate:
What's the best way to implement an 'enum' in Python?
I’m writing a function that, ideally, I’d like to return one of three states: “yes”, “no”, and “don’t know”.
-
Do any programming languages have a type that has three, and only three states? Like a boolean, but with three states instead of two?
-
In languages that don’t have such a type (like Python), what’s the best type to represent this?
Currently I think I’ll go with an integer (0
for “no”, 1
for “don’t know” and 2
for “yes”), but maybe there’s a better way? Integers seem a bit “magic number”.
I could return True
, False
or None
, but as None
would evaluate to False
in most comparison contexts it seems a bit ripe for errors.
Answers:
It’s generally known as an ‘enum’, after the C construct of that name.
You can easily create your own class, objects of which must be initialised with values from a set, and you can create the appropriate comparison, equality, and truth functions accordingly.
There is no such built-in types. And enum are also not supported as a type. However, you can use constant as:
class Option:
NO = 0
DONT_KNOW = 1
YES = 2
reply = Option.YES
I am not much of a Python programming but could you return None in the Don’t Know case. The caller would have to check for “Yes”, “No” or None but atleast they would know that you don’t know.
This is called Ternary logic or Three-valued Logic. As other answers suggest, you could either implement a class:
class Ternary:
FALSE = 0
TRUE = 1
UNKNOWN = 2
Myself, I would probably go for your solution (True
, False
, None
) but I understand your concern.
I never saw a type similar to boolean which had more than two values. After all “boolean” means that the function operates over “Boolean domain”, which in turn has exactly 2 values.
That said, it is perfectly ok to use integers, enums, or even strings. In python you can create a module containing just variables YES, NO, MAYBE and import from there to every other place.
- At least one language has this:
C#
: int? num = null;
, now num
is actually Nullable<Int32>
(the question mark is a “syntactic sugar”)
see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/1t3y8s4s%28v=vs.80%29.aspx and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullable_type
- Don’t know Python, but it depends on your preference: usability (
enum
or class
) vs. efficiency (4 bit fields)
The parallel to the None problem exists with false = 0, true = 1, unknown = 2 (unknown is not actually true either, but will eval to True if you aren’t careful).
I came up with a hackish way to get something that at least approximates what you want, I think. It will at least get you something that will evaluate in a trinary fashion in if/else and other boolean eval instances.
class Yes(object):
def __nonzero__(self):
return True
class No(object):
def __nonzero__(self):
return False
class Unknown(object):
def __nonzero__(self):
raise ValueError('Unknown typed values do not evaluate to True/False. Try using Ternary.eval().')
class Ternary(object):
def __init__(self, yes, no, unknown):
setattr(self, yes, Yes())
setattr(self, no, No())
setattr(self, unknown, Unknown())
@staticmethod
def eval(value, unknown_eval):
if isinstance(value, Unknown):
return unknown_eval
return bool(value)
Usage:
t = Ternary('yes', 'no', 'unknown')
# Do stuff to assign ternary value to x
if Ternary.eval(x, True):
print 'x is yes or unknown'
if Ternary.eval(x, False):
print 'x is yes only'
You could make Yes, No, and Unknown pseudo-singletons which would let you refine eval a little bit. You could still do simple if checks when you know that your value is going to be yes or no, but if you tried to do a straight bool() (ie if x) on Unknown you’d get a TypeError. This would make your code more explicit though, as every time you checked a value of the trinary type, you’d have to define in your code how you wanted unknown to be treated in the context of that conditional, so that would be a plus.
Edit:
I thought of an alternative that would require less special handling but less flexible. Alter above thusly:
class Unknown(object):
def __init__(self, eval):
self._eval = eval
def __nonzero__(self):
return self._eval
class Ternary(object):
def __init__(self, yes, no, unknown, unknown_eval):
setattr(self, yes, Yes())
setattr(self, no, No())
setattr(self, unknown, Unknown(unknown_eval))
Usage:
t1 = Ternary('yes', 'no', 'unknown', True)
t2 = Ternary('yes', 'no', 'unknown', False)
# Do stuff to assign ternary values to x1 and x2
if x1:
print 'x is yes or unknown'
if x2:
print 'x is yes only'
This has the benefit of allowing nonzero to work as spec calls for in Unknown, but it has the downside of having the eval for Unknown set in stone from instantiation and of no longer allowing Unknown to be a pseudo-singleton.
I have a 3-valued Logical class in my dbf module.
It implements False
/True
/Unknown
as singleton values Falsth
/Truth
/Unknown
. It implements all the comparison operators, and also allows comparison with the Python singletons False
/True
/None
(None
taken to mean unknown). Any comparison with an Unknown
value results in Unknown
, and an attempt to implicitly use an Unknown
value in an if
statement (or other bool
context) will raise a TypeError
, although Truth
and Falsth
can be used in boolean contexts, and Unknown
can be compared against directly.
Because it is not possible to override the and
, or
, and not
behavior the type overrides the bitwise operators &
, |
, and ~
.
It also implements __index__
with Unknown
having the value of 2
.
Example:
from dbf import Logical, Truth, Falsth, Unknown
middle_name = raw_input("What is the middle name? ['?' if unknown] ").strip()
if middle_name == '?':
middle_name = ''
middle_exists = Unknown
elif middle_name:
middle_exists = Truth
else:
middle_exists = Falsth
.
.
.
if middle_exists is Unknown:
print "The middle name is unknown."
elif middle_exists:
print "The middle name is %s." % middle_name
else:
print "This person does not have a middle name."
In Python I’d do that with a wrapper object that holds one of those three values; I’d use True
, False
, and None
. Since the implicit truthiness value of a Boolean-like object with three possible values is problematic, we’ll solve that by disallowing that entirely (raising an exception in __nonzero__()
, or in Python 3, __bool__()
), thus requiring that comparisons always be done explicitly, using in
, ==
, or !=
. We’ll implement equality as identity so that only the specific singleton values True
, False
, and None
are matched.
class Tristate(object):
def __init__(self, value=None):
if any(value is v for v in (True, False, None)):
self.value = value
else:
raise ValueError("Tristate value must be True, False, or None")
def __eq__(self, other):
return (self.value is other.value if isinstance(other, Tristate)
else self.value is other)
def __ne__(self, other):
return not self == other
def __nonzero__(self): # Python 3: __bool__()
raise TypeError("Tristate object may not be used as a Boolean")
def __str__(self):
return str(self.value)
def __repr__(self):
return "Tristate(%s)" % self.value
Usage:
t = Tristate(True)
t == True # True
t != False # True
t in (True, False) # True
bool(t) # Exception!
if t: print "woo" # Exception!
When using Tristate
objects, you must explicitly specify which values to match, i.e. foo == True or bar != None
. You can also do foo in (False, None)
to match multiple values (though of course in
two values is the same as !=
with a single value). If there are other logic operations you wish to be able to perform with these objects, you could implement these as methods, or possibly by overriding certain operators (sadly, however, logical not
, and
, and or
are not overrideable, though there’s a proposal to add that).
Also note that you can’t override id()
in Python, so e.g. Tristate(None) is None
is False
; the two objects are in fact different. Since good Python style is to use is
when comparing against singletons, this is unfortunate, but unavoidable.
Edit 4/27/16: Added support for comparing one Tristate
object to another.
Possible Duplicate:
What's the best way to implement an 'enum' in Python?
I’m writing a function that, ideally, I’d like to return one of three states: “yes”, “no”, and “don’t know”.
-
Do any programming languages have a type that has three, and only three states? Like a boolean, but with three states instead of two?
-
In languages that don’t have such a type (like Python), what’s the best type to represent this?
Currently I think I’ll go with an integer (
0
for “no”,1
for “don’t know” and2
for “yes”), but maybe there’s a better way? Integers seem a bit “magic number”.I could return
True
,False
orNone
, but asNone
would evaluate toFalse
in most comparison contexts it seems a bit ripe for errors.
It’s generally known as an ‘enum’, after the C construct of that name.
You can easily create your own class, objects of which must be initialised with values from a set, and you can create the appropriate comparison, equality, and truth functions accordingly.
There is no such built-in types. And enum are also not supported as a type. However, you can use constant as:
class Option:
NO = 0
DONT_KNOW = 1
YES = 2
reply = Option.YES
I am not much of a Python programming but could you return None in the Don’t Know case. The caller would have to check for “Yes”, “No” or None but atleast they would know that you don’t know.
This is called Ternary logic or Three-valued Logic. As other answers suggest, you could either implement a class:
class Ternary:
FALSE = 0
TRUE = 1
UNKNOWN = 2
Myself, I would probably go for your solution (True
, False
, None
) but I understand your concern.
I never saw a type similar to boolean which had more than two values. After all “boolean” means that the function operates over “Boolean domain”, which in turn has exactly 2 values.
That said, it is perfectly ok to use integers, enums, or even strings. In python you can create a module containing just variables YES, NO, MAYBE and import from there to every other place.
- At least one language has this:
C#
:int? num = null;
, nownum
is actuallyNullable<Int32>
(the question mark is a “syntactic sugar”)
see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/1t3y8s4s%28v=vs.80%29.aspx and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullable_type - Don’t know Python, but it depends on your preference: usability (
enum
orclass
) vs. efficiency (4 bit fields)
The parallel to the None problem exists with false = 0, true = 1, unknown = 2 (unknown is not actually true either, but will eval to True if you aren’t careful).
I came up with a hackish way to get something that at least approximates what you want, I think. It will at least get you something that will evaluate in a trinary fashion in if/else and other boolean eval instances.
class Yes(object):
def __nonzero__(self):
return True
class No(object):
def __nonzero__(self):
return False
class Unknown(object):
def __nonzero__(self):
raise ValueError('Unknown typed values do not evaluate to True/False. Try using Ternary.eval().')
class Ternary(object):
def __init__(self, yes, no, unknown):
setattr(self, yes, Yes())
setattr(self, no, No())
setattr(self, unknown, Unknown())
@staticmethod
def eval(value, unknown_eval):
if isinstance(value, Unknown):
return unknown_eval
return bool(value)
Usage:
t = Ternary('yes', 'no', 'unknown')
# Do stuff to assign ternary value to x
if Ternary.eval(x, True):
print 'x is yes or unknown'
if Ternary.eval(x, False):
print 'x is yes only'
You could make Yes, No, and Unknown pseudo-singletons which would let you refine eval a little bit. You could still do simple if checks when you know that your value is going to be yes or no, but if you tried to do a straight bool() (ie if x) on Unknown you’d get a TypeError. This would make your code more explicit though, as every time you checked a value of the trinary type, you’d have to define in your code how you wanted unknown to be treated in the context of that conditional, so that would be a plus.
Edit:
I thought of an alternative that would require less special handling but less flexible. Alter above thusly:
class Unknown(object):
def __init__(self, eval):
self._eval = eval
def __nonzero__(self):
return self._eval
class Ternary(object):
def __init__(self, yes, no, unknown, unknown_eval):
setattr(self, yes, Yes())
setattr(self, no, No())
setattr(self, unknown, Unknown(unknown_eval))
Usage:
t1 = Ternary('yes', 'no', 'unknown', True)
t2 = Ternary('yes', 'no', 'unknown', False)
# Do stuff to assign ternary values to x1 and x2
if x1:
print 'x is yes or unknown'
if x2:
print 'x is yes only'
This has the benefit of allowing nonzero to work as spec calls for in Unknown, but it has the downside of having the eval for Unknown set in stone from instantiation and of no longer allowing Unknown to be a pseudo-singleton.
I have a 3-valued Logical class in my dbf module.
It implements False
/True
/Unknown
as singleton values Falsth
/Truth
/Unknown
. It implements all the comparison operators, and also allows comparison with the Python singletons False
/True
/None
(None
taken to mean unknown). Any comparison with an Unknown
value results in Unknown
, and an attempt to implicitly use an Unknown
value in an if
statement (or other bool
context) will raise a TypeError
, although Truth
and Falsth
can be used in boolean contexts, and Unknown
can be compared against directly.
Because it is not possible to override the and
, or
, and not
behavior the type overrides the bitwise operators &
, |
, and ~
.
It also implements __index__
with Unknown
having the value of 2
.
Example:
from dbf import Logical, Truth, Falsth, Unknown
middle_name = raw_input("What is the middle name? ['?' if unknown] ").strip()
if middle_name == '?':
middle_name = ''
middle_exists = Unknown
elif middle_name:
middle_exists = Truth
else:
middle_exists = Falsth
.
.
.
if middle_exists is Unknown:
print "The middle name is unknown."
elif middle_exists:
print "The middle name is %s." % middle_name
else:
print "This person does not have a middle name."
In Python I’d do that with a wrapper object that holds one of those three values; I’d use True
, False
, and None
. Since the implicit truthiness value of a Boolean-like object with three possible values is problematic, we’ll solve that by disallowing that entirely (raising an exception in __nonzero__()
, or in Python 3, __bool__()
), thus requiring that comparisons always be done explicitly, using in
, ==
, or !=
. We’ll implement equality as identity so that only the specific singleton values True
, False
, and None
are matched.
class Tristate(object):
def __init__(self, value=None):
if any(value is v for v in (True, False, None)):
self.value = value
else:
raise ValueError("Tristate value must be True, False, or None")
def __eq__(self, other):
return (self.value is other.value if isinstance(other, Tristate)
else self.value is other)
def __ne__(self, other):
return not self == other
def __nonzero__(self): # Python 3: __bool__()
raise TypeError("Tristate object may not be used as a Boolean")
def __str__(self):
return str(self.value)
def __repr__(self):
return "Tristate(%s)" % self.value
Usage:
t = Tristate(True)
t == True # True
t != False # True
t in (True, False) # True
bool(t) # Exception!
if t: print "woo" # Exception!
When using Tristate
objects, you must explicitly specify which values to match, i.e. foo == True or bar != None
. You can also do foo in (False, None)
to match multiple values (though of course in
two values is the same as !=
with a single value). If there are other logic operations you wish to be able to perform with these objects, you could implement these as methods, or possibly by overriding certain operators (sadly, however, logical not
, and
, and or
are not overrideable, though there’s a proposal to add that).
Also note that you can’t override id()
in Python, so e.g. Tristate(None) is None
is False
; the two objects are in fact different. Since good Python style is to use is
when comparing against singletons, this is unfortunate, but unavoidable.
Edit 4/27/16: Added support for comparing one Tristate
object to another.