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Ben Hedgepeth
Python Web Development Techdegree Student 10,287 PointsFlask 'g' object
Before each request a connection needs to be made to the database. However I'm not seeing any explanation as to why g is being used to setup that very connection? What is the advantage of doing this?
Couldn't the following code be equally as sufficient: models.database.connect()?
1 Answer
Jeff Muday
Treehouse Moderator 28,716 PointsYou want your code to be as "thread-safe" as possible then the g object is your best guarantee that you can maintain your database connection and not have to continually open and close your connection to the database.
Kenneth shows a good way to do this using the "@before_request" as being a good place to open the connection and the "@after_request" where you should tear-down (close) the connection. But this can be inefficient since opening and closing the database connection is time-consuming.
A more efficient way is to use a helper function which checks if the connection is currently being held in the g object.
Read this--