How can I toggle databases in Django? - django

Question

Django's settings.py file has a DATABASES dictionary that stores configuration information for any number of database backends:
# settings.py
DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
},
'test': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
'NAME': 'testing',
'USER': 'bert',
'PASSWORD': '***',
'HOST': 'remotemysql.com',
'PORT': '3306',
},
'dev': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
'NAME': 'development',
'USER': 'ernie',
'PASSWORD': '***',
'HOST': 'remotemysql.com',
'PORT': '3306',
},
...
}
I would expect the Django authors to have included a method to easily switch among these configuration options, such as a separate variable somewhere
USE_THIS_DB = 'test';
in order to easily switch between testing, development, production, etc. databases.
I can't find this option. The only information I can find about switching databases is to manually rename the different configuration options in DATABASES so that the one I want to use is called default, which seems unnecessarily clunky, error-prone, and non-portable.
Is there no way to more elegantly switch Django among different databases at startup?

Answer 1

Why not just DIY in Python ?
# settings.py
DATABASES = {
'test': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
'NAME': 'testing',
'USER': 'bert',
'PASSWORD': '***',
'HOST': 'remotemysql.com',
'PORT': '3306',
},
'dev': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
'NAME': 'development',
'USER': 'ernie',
'PASSWORD': '***',
'HOST': 'remotemysql.com',
'PORT': '3306',
},
'sqlite': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
},
}
USE_THIS_DB = 'test'
DATABASES['default'] = DATABASES[USE_THIS_DB]