I'm writing a web application that connects to a database. I'm currently using a variable in a module that I import from other modules, but this feels nasty.
# server.py
from hexapoda.application import application
if __name__ == '__main__':
from paste import httpserver
httpserver.serve(application, host='127.0.0.1', port='1337')
# hexapoda/application.py
from mongoalchemy.session import Session
db = Session.connect('hexapoda')
import hexapoda.tickets.controllers
# hexapoda/tickets/controllers.py
from hexapoda.application import db
def index(request, params):
tickets = db.query(Ticket)
The problem is that I get multiple connections to the database (I guess that because I import application.py in two different modules, the Session.connect() function gets executed twice).
How can I access db from multiple modules without creating multiple connections (i.e. only call Session.connect() once in the entire application)?
That's probably not what you want to do - a single connection per app means that your app can't scale.
The usual solution is to connect to the database when a request comes in and store that connection in a variable with "request" scope (i.e. it lives as long as the request).
A simple way to achieve that is to put it in the request:
request.db = ...connect...
Your web framework probably offers a way to annotate methods or something like a filter which sees all requests. Put the code to open/close the connection there.
If opening connections is expensive, use connection pooling.