Liquibase Tips

If you haven’t heard about liquibase yet then I will explain it shortly:

it is a tool that helps you manage all database changes very easily.

Use maven/gradle plugin to update dev database
Store all liquibase related data in a resources folder

resources/liquibase/changelog/1.sql - a .sql file
resources/liquibase/changelog-master.xml - it inludes path to .sql files
resources/liquibase/liquibase.yml - liquibase settings: connection to a database, etc

Use relativeToChangelogFile=”true” attribute in changelog-master.xml to easily move liquibase files if required.

changelog-master.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<databaseChangeLog
  xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog
                      http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-3.1.xsd">

  <include file="changelog/1.sql" relativeToChangelogFile="true"/>
  <!-- ... -->
</databaseChangeLog>

Use liquibase SQL format and write you own rollback statements, because it’s ease to write, check and reuse in future.

--liquibase formatted sql

--changeset author:id
CREATE TABLE order (
...
);

--rollback drop table order;

Use logicalFilePath:path-independent to disable FILENAME column liquibase check

--liquibase formatted sql

--changeset author:1 logicalFilePath:path-independent
CREATE TABLE order (
...
);

Use splitStatements:false for a changeset and rollbackSplitStatements:false for a rollback multiple statements

--liquibase formatted sql

--changeset author:id splitStatements:false rollbackSplitStatements:false

Use stripComments:false for a changeset if you have comments in sql code

--liquibase formatted sql

--changeset author:id stripComments:false

You could execute any liquibase command via a liquibase console application like in the example for Postgres database below:

java -jar liquibase.jar --url=jdbc:postgresql://DATABASE_HOST:DATABASE_PART/DATABASE_NAME?currentSchema=SCHEMA_NAME --changeLogFile=./PATH_TO_CHANGELOG_FOLDER/changelog-master.xml --username=DATABASE_USERNAME --password=DATABASE_PASSWORD --driver=org.postgresql.Driver --classpath=postgresql-VERSION.jar --verbose updateSQL

Notice that you have to add a postgresql-VERSION.jar file.

I don’t recommend using 4.0.0 Installer for Windows, liquibase-4.0.0.zip or liquibase 3.10.2.tar.gz on Windows platform, because it could lead to changeset hash sum errors due to encoding issues. I recommend using a maven or Gradle plugin on the Windows platform and maven or Gradle plugin, and console application liquibase 3.10.2.tar.gz on the Linux platform.
You could read more about liquibase best practices here

CATALOG

FEATURED TAGS