Patterns: don’t mess up the prod db!

With 12factor style environment configs, it’s a very easy to accidentally connect to your production database when you think you’re connecting to dev. Here’s a simple guard you can add to make sure your  DATABASE_URL isn’t somehow pointed to someplace it’s not supposed to (assuming you’re using Amazon AWS):

bash:

if [[ ${DATABASE_URL} == *"amazonaws"* ]]; then exit -1; fi

Python:

if 'amazonaws' in os.environ['DATABASE_URL']:
   exit('Cannot be run against a production database')

Django:

if 'amazonaws' in settings.DATABASES['default']['HOST']:
    raise CommandError('Cannot be run against a production database')

(thanks to x110dc for the bash syntax and 12factor link)