heroku DATABASE_URL is undefined in nodejs app - node.js

Question

Heroku site states that the DATABASE_URL is setup automatically for you. I used the command
heroku config
to confirm that the DATABASE_URL is indeed set.
However when I use the pg package command
const client = new Client({
connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL,
ssl: true,
});
and do a console.log(process.env.DATABASE_URL), the variable reads as undefined.
The other errors that I am getting are:
UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: The server does not support SSL connections
The complete code is:
const express = require('express');
require('dotenv').config();
const { Client } = require('pg');
const app = express();
console.log(process.env.DATABASE_URL);
const client = new Client({
connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL,
ssl: true,
});
client.connect();
client.query('SELECT * FROM customers;', (err, res) => {
if (err) throw err;
for (let row of res.rows) {
console.log(JSON.stringify(row));
}
client.end();
});
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
res.send('Hello World')
});
app.listen(4000, () => {
console.log(`Server started on port`);
});
The code works when I use my local postgresql database, but when I try to connect to Heroku's postgres database, the above errors occur. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Seems you're not crazy... This isn't working for me either, so I dug in, and it just seems... broken.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/19341505/4526479
I see DATABASE_URL defined in the heroku config vars section in the online heroku dashboard. But it's just undefined in the app.

Answer 2

It looks like you're running into issues connecting to the Heroku Postgres database when you run the project locally.
The DATABASE_URL environment variable specified in heroku config exists only on the Heroku server and you don't have the environment variable set locally.
Create a .env file and include your connection string like so
DATABASE_URL=...
Here you can include the connection string for the database hosted on Heroku, or your local Postgres database server. Just make sure SSL is configured correctly