Configure connection to a SQL database.

        Args:
            db_uri (str): path/URI to the database to connect to
            debug (Optional[bool]): whether to output logging information

def connect(self, db_uri, debug=False):
        """Configure connection to a SQL database.

        Args:
            db_uri (str): path/URI to the database to connect to
            debug (Optional[bool]): whether to output logging information
        """
        kwargs = {'echo': debug, 'convert_unicode': True}
        # connect to the SQL database
        if 'mysql' in db_uri:
            kwargs['pool_recycle'] = 3600
        elif '://' not in db_uri:
            logger.debug("detected sqlite path URI: {}".format(db_uri))
            db_path = os.path.abspath(os.path.expanduser(db_uri))
            db_uri = "sqlite:///{}".format(db_path)

        self.engine = create_engine(db_uri, **kwargs)
        logger.debug('connection established successfully')
        # make sure the same engine is propagated to the BASE classes
        BASE.metadata.bind = self.engine
        # start a session
        self.session = scoped_session(sessionmaker(bind=self.engine))
        # shortcut to query method
        self.query = self.session.query
        return self