Skip to content

DEBUG_ENV_VARS.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
72 lines (52 loc) · 2.01 KB

DEBUG_ENV_VARS.md

File metadata and controls

72 lines (52 loc) · 2.01 KB

Debugging Environment Variables

Issue

When debugging in VS Code, environment variables may be empty because they're not set in VS Code's environment.

Solutions

Option 1: Use .env file (Recommended)

  1. Create .env file in project root:
# Copy from example
cp .env.example .env
  1. Edit .env with your values:
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://username:password@hostname:5432/database
ADURL=your_ad_url_here
ADU=your_ad_user_here
ADP=your_ad_password_here
REDBUS_ADG_MODEL=40
  1. The launch.json will automatically load .env file (via "envFile": "${workspaceFolder}/.env")

Option 2: Set in VS Code Settings

  1. Open VS Code Settings (Cmd+, / Ctrl+,)
  2. Search for "python.envFile"
  3. Set it to ${workspaceFolder}/.env

Option 3: Set in Terminal Profile

Add to your shell profile (~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc):

export DATABASE_URL="postgresql://username:password@hostname:5432/database"
export ADURL="your_value"
export ADU="your_value"
export ADP="your_value"
export REDBUS_ADG_MODEL="40"

Then restart VS Code (so it picks up the new environment).

Option 4: Use config.ini (Current Setup)

Since config.ini already has the database URL, the app will read from there even if environment variables are empty. The database connection should work.

However, ADURL, ADU, ADP are still needed for RedbusADG model. These can be:

  • Set in .env file
  • Set in your shell profile
  • Or passed directly in launch.json (not recommended for secrets)

Verify Environment Variables

Add this to your code temporarily to debug:

import os
logger.info('DATABASE_URL: %s', os.getenv('DATABASE_URL', 'NOT SET'))
logger.info('ADURL: %s', os.getenv('ADURL', 'NOT SET'))

Current Setup

The app_server.py prioritizes:

  1. Environment variables (DATABASE_URL, POSTGRES_URL, DB_URL)
  2. Config file (config.ini) - database_url field
  3. PostgresDBHelper will try to read from environment as fallback

So even if environment variables are empty, the database URL from config.ini will be used.