(Newbie) Need a procedure to handle data migrations

chrisherring

The most common problem I am running into is adding new NOT NULL columns to tables. Before Source Control, this was simply a matter of executing a script against each DB:

1. add the column to the table
2. set initial value in exiting rows
3. alter column to not null

What's the right approach with SQL Source Control?

David Atkinson

Have you tried the latest v3 early access build? This has a feature that lets you add your own custom migration script to override default behavior. What you need to do is to add a migration script to cover the change in which the NOT NULL column was added, and to edit the default script to add the UPDATE statement.

see:
http://www.red-gate.com/MessageBoard/vi ... hp?t=14110

This feature works with TFS, SVN and Vault for the time being. Which do you use?

David Atkinson
Product Manager
Red Gate Software

chrisherring

David,

Thanks for the information. The Data Migration feature sounds like exactly what we need. We are using git; I take it that means we cannot use the v3 build yet.

Chris

David Atkinson

That's right, there isn't GIT support yet. Can I ask you to raise a feature request here so we can size the community interest?

http://redgate.uservoice.com/forums/390 ... ce-control

Although there's one for Mercurial, there isn't a migrations feature request for GIT support, so you'll need to create a new one.

Thanks,

David

chrisherring

Feature request added.

Thanks

Chris

David Atkinson

Feel free to try out the feature on a 'test' database using the 'just evaluating' option and provide us with feedback on the feature itself.

Thanks.

David