Question

I’m working with some friends to build a PostgreSQL/SQLAlchemy Python app and have the following line:

engine = create_engine('postgresql+pg8000://oldmba@localhost/helloworld')

Newbie question: Instead of having to edit in “oldmba” (my username) all the time whenever I git pull someone else’s code, what’s the simple way to make that line equally applicable to all users so we don’t have to constantly edit it? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

have a config file with your settings.

It can store data in python config dictionary or variables

The config file can import from a local_settings.py file. This file can be ignored in your gitignore. It can contain your individdual settings , username , password, database urls, pretty much anything that you need to configure and that may differ depending on your enviornment (production vs devel)

This is how settings in django projects are usually handled. It allows for multiple users to devlop on the same project with different settings. You might want a ‘database_url’ field or something too so on production if you need to set your database to a different server but on development you use ‘localhost’

# config.py

database = {
  'username': 'production_username',
  'password': 'production_password'
}

try:
  from local_config import *
catch ImportError:
  pass





# local_config.py
 database = {
  'username': 'your_username',
  'password': 'your_password'
}

from config import *
engine = create_engine('postgresql+pg8000://{0}@localhost/helloworld'.format(database['username']))