Python: how to write script that behaves differently in different environments

Question

I'm writing a Python script and I'd like it to behave differently from my CLI than in Production. Here's how I have it currently:

testing = False # True

def run_test():
    if testing == True:
        print message
    else:
        alert_department(message)

but I don't like my core functions littered with if/else statements.

What better patterns should I use?

Answer 1

This particular use looks like you want logging with different logger configurations based on the environment. Then you can just happily

log = logging.getLogger('some_scope')

# ...
log.warning('Something warning-worthy occurred')

and your configuration determines whether it's printed to the console or whether a custom "alert department" handler is called.

In general, though, I'd recommend against having your script behave (very) differently in dev, testing and production as that makes debugging difficult.