Sqitch is a database change management application. What makes it different from your typical migration-style approaches? A few things:
No opinions
Sqitch is not integrated with any framework, ORM, or platform. Rather, it is a standalone change management system with no opinions about your database engine, application framework, or your development environment.
Native scripting
Changes are implemented as scripts native to your selected database engine. Writing a PostgreSQL application? Write SQL scripts for psql. Writing a MySQL-backed app? Write SQL scripts for mysql.
Dependency resolution
Database changes may declare dependencies on other changes--even on changes from other Sqitch projects. This ensures proper order of execution, even when you've committed changes to your VCS out-of-order.
No numbering
Change deployment is managed by maintaining a plan file. As such, there is no need to number your changes, although you can if you want. Sqitch doesn't much care how you name your changes.
Iterative development
Up until you tag and release your application, you can modify your change deployment scripts as often as you like. They're not locked in just because they've been committed to your VCS. This allows you to take an iterative approach to developing your database schema. Or, better, you can do test-driven database development.
Reduced Duplication
If you're using a VCS to track your changes, you don't have to duplicate entire change scripts for simple changes. As long as the changes are idempotent, you can change your code directly, and Sqitch will know it needs to be updated.
Installation
There are a number of ways to install Sqitch. The PostgreSQL support requires PostgreSQL; the Oracle support requires Instant Client (and the setting of the $ORACLE_HOME environment variable).
CPAN
- PostgreSQL:
cpan App::Sqitch DBD::Pg - SQLite:
cpan App::Sqitch DBD::SQLite - Oracle:
cpan App::Sqitch DBD::Oracle
Homebrew
- Tap:
brew tap theory/sqitch - PostreSQL:
brew install sqitch-pg - SQLite:
brew install sqitch-sqlite - Oracle:
brew install sqitch-oracle
ActiveState PPM
- Install ActivePerl
- Run
ppm install App-Sqitch - For Oracle support, also run
ppm install DBD-Oracle
Getting Started
Tutorials
The documentation includes an tutorial for each database engine demonstrating the creation, development, and maintenance of a database with Sqitch.
Presentation
Video of “Sane Database Change Management with Sqitch.” Presented to the Portland PostgreSQL Users Group in September, 2012.
Slides
From “Sane Database Change Management with Sqitch.” Presented to the Portland Perl Mongers in January, 2013.