Question

I am implementing a Django deployment and have the following logic in my settings file.

if 'DEPLOYMENT_TYPE' in os.environ:
    DEPLOYMENT = os.environ['DEPLOYMENT_TYPE'].upper()

Thus, I want to be able to set the ‘DEPLOYMENT_TYPE’ key in os.environ on a per-computer basis. I have tried in a separate shell:

os.putenv('DEPLOYMENT_TYPE', ...)
os.environ['DEPLOYMENT_TYPE'] = ...

However, these don’t work because I’m guessing os.environ gets populated when os is imported. Thus, what’s the best way to set the ‘DEPLOYMENT_TYPE’ on a per-computer basis? I can’t just stick the line in my settings file.

Answer 1

The whole point of os.environ is that it’s initialized from the shell environment it’s running in. So you should set it in the environment settings – ie bash_profile or whatever – of the user that’s running the deployment.