how to check the database name that ActiveRecord uses

In database.yml you define all the settings. How can I access those settings from ruby? I've looked in App::Application::config, but can't find it there. Also, I remember people were able to configure database settings without yaml, does anyone know how?

Solution 1:

Rails.configuration.database_configuration

This will give you a hash table with the configurations for each of your environments. E.g. to get your development database name:

Rails.configuration.database_configuration["development"]["database"]

Solution 2:

In Rails 4.2, you can do this:

ActiveRecord::Base.connection.current_database

You can also ask specific models for their database (since it's possible to use different databases per model):

User.connection.current_database