How to set up different databases per environment in Play 2.0?

configuration, database, playframework, playframework-2.0, scala

Solution

In Play 2 there aren't different config environments. Instead you just set or override the config parameters in the `conf/application.conf` file. One way to do it is on the `play` command line, like:

play -Ddb.default.driver=org.postgresql.Driver -Ddb.default.url=$DATABASE_URL ~run

You can also tell Play to use a different config file:

play -Dconfig.file=conf/prod.conf ~run

For an example Procfile for Heroku, see: https://github.com/jamesward/play2bars/blob/scala-anorm/Procfile

More details in the Play Docs: http://www.playframework.org/documentation/2.0/Configuration

Problem

I'd like my Play app to use different databases for test, local and production (production is Heroku) environments. In `application.conf` I have: ``` db.default.driver=org.postgresql.Driver %dev.db.default.url="jdbc:postgresql://localhost/foobar" %test.db.default.url="jdbc:postgresql://localhost/foobar-test" %prod.db.default.url=${DATABASE_URL} ``` This doesn't seem to work. When I run `play test` or `play run`, all DB access fails with: ``` Configuration error [Missing configuration [db.default.url]] (Configuration.scala:258) ``` I have a few questions about this: In general, I'm a little confused about how databases are configured in Play: it looks like there's plain `db`, `db.[DBNAME]` and `db. [DBNAME].url` and different tutorials make different choices among those. Certain expressions that seem like they should work (e.g. `db.default.url = "jdbc:..."` fail with an error that a string was provided where an object was expected). I've seen other people suggest that I create separate `prod.conf`, `dev.conf` and `test.conf` files that each include `application.conf` and then contain DB-specific configuration. But in that case, how do I specify what database to use when I run `test` from the Play console? Is the `%env` syntax supposed to work in Play 2? What's the correct way to specify an environment for `play test` to use?

Original source