Export to an existing folder

commongenius

One of the most obvious uses of the export scripts feature is for use with source control. However, SQL Compare requires that the folder being exported to must be empty. This means that rather than simply exporting over the existing files and then checking in the changes, I have to create a new empty folder to export to, copy the result back over my working copy, and then delete the temporary export folder. It seems to me that this restriction is completely arbitrary. Why not allow exporting to an existing folder and overwrite any existing files? This would make the process of using SQL Compare with source control much simpler.

Ben Pinchen

Unfortunately, it isn't possible to export scripts to an existing folder. This is by design and was set to prevent inconsistencies creeping in and causing issues when running the comparison. Apart from your method, presently the only work around is to run a comparison between the database and scripts folder and 'synch' to the folder.

We're considering adding the option to wipe the contents of an existing folder, if chosen, when exporting scripts. Would this be something that you'd be interested in seeing?

commongenius

No, wiping an existing folder before exporting would not help. I use Subversion for source control, which creates a hidden ".svn" directory in every directory in the working copy. Deleting that hidden directory would break the working copy.

I had not considered the possibility of syncing to the scripts directory rather than exporting. I will give that a try.