diff --git a/Web/Heroku/Internal.hs b/Web/Heroku/Internal.hs
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Web/Heroku/Internal.hs
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+module Web.Heroku.Internal ( 
+    dbConnParams' 
+  , parseDatabaseUrl'
+  ) where
+
+import System.Environment
+import Network.URI
+import Data.Text
+import Prelude
+
+-- | read the DATABASE_URL environment variable
+-- and return an alist of connection parameters with the following keys:
+-- user, password, host, port, dbname
+--
+-- warning: just calls error if it can't parse correctly
+dbConnParams' :: String -> (String -> [(Text, Text)]) -> IO [(Text, Text)]
+dbConnParams' envVar parse = getEnv envVar >>= return . parse
+
+parseDatabaseUrl' :: String -> String -> [(Text, Text)]
+parseDatabaseUrl' scheme durl =
+  let muri = parseAbsoluteURI durl
+      (auth, path) = case muri of
+                      Nothing ->  error "couldn't parse absolute uri"
+                      Just uri -> if uriScheme uri /= scheme
+                                    then schemeError uri
+                                    else case uriAuthority uri of
+                                           Nothing   -> invalid
+                                           Just a -> (a, uriPath uri)
+      (user,password) = userAndPassword auth
+  in     [
+          (pack "user",     user)
+          -- tail not safe, but should be there on Heroku
+         ,(pack "password", Data.Text.tail password)
+         ,(pack "host",     pack $ uriRegName auth)
+         -- Heroku should use default port
+         -- ,(pack "port",     pack $ uriPort auth)
+         -- tail not safe but path should always be there
+         ,(pack "dbname",   pack $ Prelude.tail $ path)
+         ]
+  where
+    -- init is not safe, but should be there on Heroku
+    userAndPassword :: URIAuth -> (Text, Text)
+    userAndPassword = (breakOn $ pack ":") . pack . Prelude.init . uriUserInfo
+
+    schemeError uri = error $ "was expecting a postgres scheme, not: " ++ (uriScheme uri) ++ "\n" ++ (show uri)
+    -- should be an error 
+    invalid = error "could not parse heroku DATABASE_URL"
diff --git a/heroku.cabal b/heroku.cabal
--- a/heroku.cabal
+++ b/heroku.cabal
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 Name:                heroku
-Version:             0.1.1
+Version:             0.1.1.1
 Synopsis:            helpers for deploying to Heroku
 Description:         currently just a parser for DATABASE_URL
 Homepage:            https://github.com/gregwebs/haskell-heroku
@@ -17,6 +17,8 @@
   Exposed-modules: Web.Heroku
                  , Web.Heroku.Postgres
                  , Web.Heroku.MongoDB
+
+  Other-modules: Web.Heroku.Internal
   
   Build-depends: base >= 4 && < 5
                , text