get MySQL database connection information from environment variables in Python

README.md

While this code is for MySQLdb, it would be similar for most other Python database APIs. The corresponding environment variables, which are all optional:

• DB_HOST
• DB_PASSWD
• DB_PORT
• DB_USER
• DB_UNIX_SOCKET

More information about these variables.

mysql.py

import MySQLdb


def get_db_kwargs(env):
    db_kwargs = {}
    for key in ['host', 'user', 'passwd', 'port', 'unix_socket']:
        env_var = "DB_{}".format(key.upper())
        if env_var in env:
            db_kwargs[key] = env[env_var]

    return db_kwargs


db_kwargs = get_db_kwargs(os.environ)

db = MySQLdb.connect(**db_kwargs)
# ...