published on in HowTo JavaScript
tags: configuration database nodejs

Node.js – Database connection depends on environments

I hate when I need to use the same password on all of my computers only because I develop on multiple machines. For instance, I want to connect to the +MySQL database from my +node.js application , but my local configuration differs from the production environment (surprising thing, isn’t it?).

// If DB env does not exists we need to declare
if (typeof process.env.DB == "undefined" || !process.env.DB ) {
  // Clockwork is my personal computer where I code primarily
  process.env.DB = "clockwork";
}

// If DB env has an unknown value
// override it
if (process.env.DB !== "clockwork" &&
    process.env.DB !== "yitsushisa" &&
    process.env.DB !== "production"
) {
  process.env.DB = "clockwork";
}

// configurations
var connections = {
  clockwork: {
    host: "localhost",
    name: "xxxxxx",
    password: "xxxxxxx",
    username: "xxxxxxx"
  },

  yitsushisa: {
    host: "localhost",
    name: "xxxxxxyy",
    password: "xxxxxxx",
    username: "yyyyyyy"
},

  production: {
    host: "master.db.host",
    name: "zzzzzzzz",
    password: "xzzzxzxxxz",
    username: "zzxyxxzxyz"
  }
};

module.exports = (function() {
  return {
    wsdl: {
      priceList: "https://xxxx:xxxx@xxxxxx/ws/pricelist.asmx?WSDL"
    },
    xhr: {
      priceList: "https://xxxxxx:443/ws/pricelist.asmx",
      resources: "https://xxxxxx:443/ws/resources.asmx",
      order: "https://xxxxxx:443/ws/Order.asmx"
    },
    auth: {
      username: "xxxxxx",
      password: "xxxxxx"
    },
    sql: {
      prefix: "abhu-",
      database: connections[process.env.DB],
      margin: 1.06
    }
  };
})();

// EOF

So I created a simple method to solve it. Now when I call this configuration file then I can point to properties directly.

var configuration = require('../etc/mymodule.js');
console.log(configuration.sql.database.username);

The only thing I need to call the main application like this:

DB="production" node app.js parameters

If you have got a better but simple solution, please tell it ;)