Flask basics - setting environment variables

Lots of Flask tutorials recommend setting environment variables to protect any private information stored in the settings of the app. This is good advice, it only takes a moment of inattention to commit sensitive information to your GIT repo and then push it to a public place such as GitHub. If you're using a virtualenv (if you're not I recommend you go and fix that before you pollute your local python environment too badly to recover it) this is a really simple thing to do:

• Open the postactivate file in the virtualenv you're using in your text editor of choice eg: vim ~/.VirtualEnvs/VENV/bin/postactivate.
• Add your variables to the bottom of the file, one on each line in the following format: export VARIABLE_NAME='whatever_you_want_here'.
• Activate your virtualenv and check that your variables have been loaded by using echo $VARIABLE_NAME. Now whenever you start your venv your environment variables will be available.