Does Visual Studio SQL Server Data Tools (any version) support changing the default comparison mappings, for objects with different names, and/or in different schemas?
For example, I want to compare tables in two SQL Server databases, but the tables are in different schemas in each database:
database1.SchemaA.MyTable
database2.SchemaB.MyTable
Can these tables be compared with each other using SSDT, and if so how can I do it? I cannot find any mapping options or documentation.
As far as I know, no, you cannot do the comparison using SSDT if they are in different schema. The database doesn't matter though, you could specify the connection and database when running schema compare, but not the schema.
One workaround to get it working in less than ideal way would be to:
deploy your SchemaA.MyTable locally
after the schema has been deployed successfully, replace the table definition of SchemaA.MyTable with that of SchemaB.MyTable
Run sqlcompare with your project as the source and the local db (where you deployed your project in step 1) as the target.
Related
I maintain a Windows based application backed by SQL Server DB so there is a set of SQL entities, like tables, views. With time I add new features and fix bugs so schema of the tables and views changes. Once I need to deploy a new version of the application I deploy the DB part by relying on DacPac/DacFx which automatically generates a difference between already deployed DB and the supplied DacPac so the already deployed DB is altered to match the DacPac's content. This way I don't have to write a code which compares 2 schemas and then generates a difference - DacFx does that for me.
That works well but now I need to expand the application so it also supports SQLite DB, I will for sure have to create a new application layer working with SQLite which is doable but one place I need help with is being able to create and maintain SQLite DB schema in the same way I do for SQL Server with DacPac/DacFx so a difference in schemas is computed and applied. While doing that I ideally want do write the SQL schema once so it could be applied to SQL Server as well as SQLite. Ideally, I need to generate SQLite schema based on the schema specific to SQL Server.
I looked into sqldiff which is capable of generating difference between 2 SQLIte DBs and thought I could:
use a technique from here to migrate SQL Server schema to SQLite
generate a temporary SQLite DB based on the generated above schema
compare the above deployed temporary DB to an existing SQLite DB by using the sqldiff and finally apply the difference to the target SQLite DB
but the sqldiff, as stated in the Limitations section:
The sqldiff utility is not designed to support schema migrations
In addition it has limitations around views:
The sqldiff.exe utility does not (currently) display differences in
TRIGGERs or VIEWs.
So I interpret that like that tool could probably be used for some migration cases but it is not really recommended.
How do you suggest generating and applying the schema differences?
I'm also interested to know how others solve the task of incrementally updating schema of their SQLite DB even if I take SQL Server completely out of equation and would instead maintain SQLite schema, in the source code, only. Does everyone create their own schema comparing tools instead of using something similar like DacFx in SQL Server world?
I recently moved a SQL Server 2012 database from an old web server to Azure SQL. I also keep a copy of the database on my personal machine which is now running SQL Server 2019. During development, I frequently make changes to tables on my local machine and then need to transfer those tables to the server. I used to do this using a Visual Studio SSIS package. It was very easy. I used the "Transfer SQL Server Objects" task to select one or more tables, specify whether the existing tables should be dropped first, and replaced the tables on the server. The "Transfer SQL Server Objects" task does not work when trying to transfer objects to Azure SQL because it uses the "USE" statement. There must be an easy way to transfer tables to an Azure SQL database. I've used the "Microsoft Data Migration Assistant" and it works great for the initial migration, but does not allow you to replace tables. I feel like I am missing something very obvious because transferring tables is a routine task and there must be an easy way to do this with Azure SQL.
Manually managing and synchronizing different database versions can be time-consuming. The Schema Compare addon facilitates database comparison and provides you complete control when syncing them — you may filter particular differences and categories of differences before making modifications. The Schema Compare addon is a trustworthy tool that will save you time and code.
Hence, the Schema Compare extension provides an easy-to-use experience
to compare two database definitions and apply the differences from the
source to the target. MSFT Ddocument which could be usefull : Schema
Compare extension- here and How to: Use Schema Compare to Compare
Different Database Definitions - Here.
I am needing to move all of my stored procedures into TFS 2012. I was wondering what the best/fastest way to accomplish this is. I am using SQL Server 2012.
Our suggestion would be to use the SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) and create a database schema change management project in Visual Studio that you can then check-in to Team Foundation Server. It has quite a few benefits like being able to "compile" the schema and has tools that can be used in generating automatic change scripts for target servers (whether they are empty, test, or even production servers).
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/tools.aspx
SSDT is definitely the way to go, It's a component of Visual Studio. There is an SSDT for database projects, and SSDT-BI for reports etc.
Create a database project in Visual Studio and add your database objects (stored procedures, views, functions, tables, schemas etc) into the project. It allows for all database objects to be stored in there (even database roles/users, certificates, keys etc).
Alternatively, you can use Visual Studio to import a database from a server. It will read your database and populate the project with all the objects from that database. It's very cool.
You can check in to TFS as you would with any other project which allows you to do versioning (with comments), attach that work to TFS tickets (if you manage your workload that way) and perform branching and merging and you can also compare different versions of the project or the project against already deployed versions.
Once you're happy with your database you can 'publish' your project up to a server of your choosing. This is a very useful method for creating code that can be deployed to multiple environments (i.e. different dev/test environments). You can also compare your project against a deployed version to see changes. For example, you could compare your project against a test environment to see what the differences are and generate a script to update the test environment to match source (or vice-versa).
SSDT is great for deployments because it calculates how to apply your database project (rather than just dropping the database and creating a new one). You can also use pre & post deployment scripts to work with data or add permissions onto your objects for example.
You can publish to a database/server, script or DACPAC (which is the format for copying your entire project/database schema and allows you to perform deployments/drift reports etc from outside of Visual Studio)
We're developing an aspx project with Visual Studio 2010 Professional, SQL Server 2008 R2 and Team Foundation Server 2010. Since the development is being carried out in multiple offices, each developer has their own local instances of the databases.
I want to bring these multiple databases under source control (or at least the schemas of the DB, structure and stored procedures - data doesn't matter to me). My preferred approach is to add database projects to the VS solution, which is already source controlled in TFS. Any changes will be distributed by TFS, and can be deployed locally.
The problem I'm having is that the database projects contain a reference to a local database instance (server & name). When someone gets the latest version of my changes, they will have a reference to my local DB instance (which is different to their local DB instance). They would need to change the DB details (thus checking the dbproj out) in order to get my updates.
So, is there any way that the database server & name can be left out of source control while the schemas remain under source control? Any help would be much appreciated!
I'm not sure if you can. However, you could use an alias, so all of the developers use a database on their local machine, but referenced by the same alias.
Take a look at: http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1620/how-to-setup-and-use-a-sql-server-alias/ for how to set an alias up.
That way you can separate the database from the connection details.
I'm involved in developing a unique enforced database source control solution called DBmaestro TeamWork.
It has a plugin to SSMS which allows the developer to work directly on the database objects (change their working environment), run their tests and then perform Check-In which reads the metadata (tables' structure, procedures, functions, views etc.) to the version control repository.
With the Impact Analysis it is easy to merge changes from different databases to a single database.
The impact analysis algorithm perform 3-way analysis (not just a simple compare & sync) to identify changes origin from developerA which should not be reverted when developer merge his changes and it ignores the database name when running the impact analysis or generating the delta script.
In MS SQL Server 2005, how can I create a script consisting off all the objects in the database (tables, stored procedures, views)? I want to use the script to create the database using SMO or to update its objects (alter, drop) if they already exist. I know about the scripting feature in SQL Server Management Studio, I am however not familiar with the configuration options.
If versioning your database schema is what you're getting to, try Wizardby. Although it does not directly support neither views nor sprocs, it supports running native SQL scripts as part of an upgrade/downgrade process.
I use Easy Sql Tools. The deploy version is free. You can generate scripts from schemas, data, indexes, almost everything.
http://www.easysqltools.com
There's a great tool SQL Compare that will actually compare two databases and create a change script for you. It's a great tool for staging purposes. There's also SQL Data Compare tool that will also compare lookup tables and act accordingly.
The downside is, they're not free. :(