Sqitch is a database change management application. It currently supports PostgreSQL 8.4 and higher, SQLite 3.7.11 and higher, MySQL 5.6.4 and higher,, and Oracle 10g and higher.
What makes it different from your typical migration approaches? A few things:
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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.
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Native scripting
Changes are implemented as scripts native to your selected database engine. Writing a PostgreSQL application? Write SQL scripts for
psql. Writing an Oracle-backed app? Write SQL scripts for SQL*Plus. -
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.
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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.
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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.
Want to learn more? The best place to start is in the tutorials:
- Introduction to Sqitch on PostgreSQL
- Introduction to Sqitch on SQLite
- Introduction to Sqitch on Oracle
- Introduction to Sqitch on MySQL
- Introduction to Sqitch on Firebird
There have also been a number of presentations on Sqitch:
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PDX.pm Presentation: Slides from "Sane Database Management with Sqitch", presented to the Portland Perl Mongers in January, 2013.
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PDXPUG Presentation: Movie of "Sane Database Management with Sqitch", presented to the Portland PostgreSQL Users Group in September, 2012.
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Agile Database Development: Slides from a three-hour tutorial session on using Git, test-driven development with pgTAP, and change management with Sqitch, updated in January, 2014.
To install Sqitch from a distribution download, type the following:
perl Build.PL
./Build installdeps
./Build
./Build test
./Build install
If you're using Homebrew, you can use the Sqitch Homebrew Tap.
To build from a Git clone, first install Dist::Zilla, then use it to install Sqitch and its dependencies:
cpan Dist::Zilla
dzil install
To run Sqitch directly from the Git clone execute t/sqitch. If you're doing
development on Sqitch, you will need to install the autoring dependencies, as
well:
dzil listdeps | xargs cpan
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