Migrating to grate from RoundhousE

RoundhousE is an amazing tool, and grate is trying to be backwards compatible with RH to make upgrading easy.

Changes compared to RoundhousE

There’s a number of general changes in grate as a result of moving to the latest .Net bits that will apply to all users.

grate is built using the new System.CommandLine API’s, so:

  • Command line arguments are now case-sensitive on all operating systems (including windows)
  • Support for /argument on windows has been removed, and you’ll have to use -a or --argument instead. See grate --help for the full set of allowed options.

  • We have gained support for Response (.rsp) files

  • By default grate stores version information in the grate database schema. To continue using your existing version information pass --schema=RoundhousE

  • grate has a single mandatory -cs/--connstring argument for simplicity. RH’s --database, --server etc arguments are no longer allowed.

  • Not all previously supported tokens are available yet. For more information see the Token Replacement docs.

  • UserTokens have had two small changes. In keeping with the System.CommandLine standards the --ut option is now passed multiple times for multiple tokens, rather than parsing a single ‘;’ delimited string. Support for ; delimited lists of tokens may be re-added in the future.

  • The DropCreate ‘mode’ has been merged with the --drop option. RH used a single-run workflow for Normal and RestoreRun modes, but needed two executions for the DropCreate mode. grate uses the --drop option like RH but it continues with the creation and migration afterwards! If you have a scenario for dropping a database but not then running a migration, please open an issue!

  • The --verbose flag has been changed to a --verbosity flag, accepting the values of <Critical|Debug|Error|Information|None|Trace|Warning> (see the MS docs for details)

  • The Allow User Variables connection string option for MySQL connections (used in SPROCs) is no longer set by default.

RH Features that aren’t yet in grate

Rebuilding a decade old product from scratch takes time, and features have to be prioritised. The list of items below shows the current set of outstanding RH features that haven’t been built yet. If there’s something on this list you can’t live without, raise an issue to help us out. If people take ownership of a feature and contribute PR’s then we’ll all get there faster 👍

Expect this list to shrink over time.

  • --defaultencoding
  • --isuptodate
  • MSBuild Task.
  • Multiple Environments per run. Scripts can target multiple environments (blah.env.test.uat.sql), but each migration can only target a single environment. If this is a limiting factor for you please raise an issue to discuss.
  • Recovery Modes (--simple, --recoverymode etc). A runAfterCreateDatabase script using alter ... may work for you in the meantime.
  • Restore Options (--restorefrompath, --restoreoptions, --restoretimeout etc)
  • Version info sourced from a file. --version=<VALUE> support is available on the command line