Question

I’d like to have sqlalchemy get the hostname, username, and password for the mysql database it’s connecting to.

The documentation says mysql schemas are specified as such:

mysql_db = create_engine('mysql://scott:tiger@localhost/foo')

Is it possible to instead source a mysql defaults file such as /etc/my.cnf and get the login details from there? I’d like to avoid embedding the username/password in my code.

Answer 1

Here is a result that was found on the sqlalchemy mailing list, posted by Tom H:

http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg11241.html

from sqlalchemy.engine.url import URL

myDB = URL(drivername='mysql', host='localhost',
    database='my_database_name',
    query={ 'read_default_file' : '/path/to/.my.cnf' }
)
engine = create_engine(name_or_url=myDB)
# use the engine as usual, no password needed in your code file :)