Option to never drop columns or indexes?

mcaracuel

Hi,

My company sells commercial software that uses SQL Server as the database engine. When we provide upgrades, we use SQL Compare to create change scripts. Today, we have to inspect all objects by hand because our clients may have added columns or indexes to our tables, which we have to leave alone.

Is there an option that would cause SQL Compare to never generate drop column or drop indexes statements? So, if our product has added new columns, we want those columns added. But if the customer has added new columns, we want those to remain where they are.

I read a post about a SQL Compare API. Could this be acomplished with that API? Where can I find more information about the API?

Thanks

David Atkinson

There's an "Ignore indexes" option which you could try. Unfortunately there is no current way to leave "additional" columns on the target machine, as columns are not given any special status and are treated as a property of a table. However, there have been many requests for this behaviour and therefore it is likely that this will be considered in a future release, although I can't say when.

I doubt that this can be done from the Comparison SDK (API), although I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Kind regards,

David Atkinson
Red Gate Software