Enums

About

Enumerations can be thought of as "dropdowns" or picklists in data entry forms. Minimally, the enum is a predefined set of strings. These strings can optionally be provided with more metadata, such as descriptions or assignment of controlled vocabulary/ontology terms

How it works

Two descriptors are provided for enumerations:

• enum
• permissible_value

These can be used in combination:

• If enum is provided, and permissible_value is not, then the row represents an enumeration
• If both enum and permissible_value are provided, the row represents a particular enum value

Example

The following example includes two enums, each with a few permissible values

ValueSet	Value	Mapping	Desc
> enum	permissible_value	meaning	description
FamilialRelationshipType	-	-	familial relationships
FamilialRelationshipType	SIBLING_OF	KIN:007	share the same parent
FamilialRelationshipType	PARENT_OF	KIN:003	biological parent
FamilialRelationshipType	CHILD_OF	KIN:032	inverse of parent
GenderType	-	-	gender
GenderType	nonbinary man	GSSO:009254	-
GenderType	nonbinary woman	GSSO:009253	-
...	...	...	-

• enums google sheet

Although optionable recommend you provide descriptions of both the enumeration and the meaning descriptor which maps the value to a vocabulary or ontology term.

Note that prefixes should be separately declared. In the examples here, we are using two different ontologies.

More info

For more on enumerations, see LinkML Schema Guide and the the linkml tutorial