Dynamically defining a database

For even more control over how your database is defined/initialized, you can use the Proxy helper. Proxy objects act as a placeholder, and then at run-time you can swap it out for a different object. In the example below, we will swap out the database depending on how the app is configured:

database_proxy = Proxy()  # Create a proxy for our db.
class BaseModel(Model):
    class Meta:
        database = database_proxy  # Use proxy for our DB.
class User(BaseModel):
    username = CharField()
# Based on configuration, use a different database.
if app.config['DEBUG']:
    database = SqliteDatabase('local.db')
elif app.config['TESTING']:
    database = SqliteDatabase(':memory:')
else:
    database = PostgresqlDatabase('mega_production_db')
# Configure our proxy to use the db we specified in config.
database_proxy.initialize(database)

Warning

Only use this method if your actual database driver varies at run-time. For instance, if your tests and local dev environment run on SQLite, but your deployed app uses PostgreSQL, you can use the Proxy to swap out engines at run-time.

However, if it is only connection values that vary at run-time, such as the path to the database file, or the database host, you should instead use Database.init(). See Run-time database configuration for more details.