In order to use PostgreSQL as database in your Python applications it is necessary to use the psycopg2 package and add it in the dependency file called requirements.txt. The following is just a code sample to help you understand the concept;
$ pip install psycopg2 $ pip freeze > requirements.txt
Then, use the psycopg2 package to connect the DATABASE_URL variable:
import psycopg2 import urlparse import os try: urlparse.uses_netloc.append("postgres") connection_params = urlparse.urlparse(os.environ["DATABASE_URL"]) db_connection = psycopg2.connect(database = connection_params.path[1:], user = connection_params.username, password = connection_params.password, host = connection_params.hostname, port = connection_params.port) except: print "Database connection failed."