class ScrapenewsPipeline(object):

  def open_spider(self, spider):
      self.connection = psycopg2.connect(
        host= os.environ['HOST_NAME'],
        user=os.environ['USERNAME'],
        database=os.environ['DATABASE_NAME'],
        password=os.environ['PASSWORD'])
      self.cursor = self.connection.cursor()
      self.connection.set_session(autocommit=True)


  def close_spider(self, spider):
      self.cursor.close()
      self.connection.close()


  def process_item(self, item, spider):
      print ("Some Magic Happens Here")


  def checkUrlExist(self, item):
      print("I want to call this function from my spider to access the
    self.cursor variable")