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- Alembic is a database migrations tool written by the author
- of `SQLAlchemy <http://www.sqlalchemy.org>`_. A migrations tool
- offers the following functionality:
- * Can emit ALTER statements to a database in order to change
- the structure of tables and other constructs
- * Provides a system whereby "migration scripts" may be constructed;
- each script indicates a particular series of steps that can "upgrade" a
- target database to a new version, and optionally a series of steps that can
- "downgrade" similarly, doing the same steps in reverse.
- * Allows the scripts to execute in some sequential manner.
- The goals of Alembic are:
- * Very open ended and transparent configuration and operation. A new
- Alembic environment is generated from a set of templates which is selected
- among a set of options when setup first occurs. The templates then deposit a
- series of scripts that define fully how database connectivity is established
- and how migration scripts are invoked; the migration scripts themselves are
- generated from a template within that series of scripts. The scripts can
- then be further customized to define exactly how databases will be
- interacted with and what structure new migration files should take.
- * Full support for transactional DDL. The default scripts ensure that all
- migrations occur within a transaction - for those databases which support
- this (Postgresql, Microsoft SQL Server), migrations can be tested with no
- need to manually undo changes upon failure.
- * Minimalist script construction. Basic operations like renaming
- tables/columns, adding/removing columns, changing column attributes can be
- performed through one line commands like alter_column(), rename_table(),
- add_constraint(). There is no need to recreate full SQLAlchemy Table
- structures for simple operations like these - the functions themselves
- generate minimalist schema structures behind the scenes to achieve the given
- DDL sequence.
- * "auto generation" of migrations. While real world migrations are far more
- complex than what can be automatically determined, Alembic can still
- eliminate the initial grunt work in generating new migration directives
- from an altered schema. The ``--autogenerate`` feature will inspect the
- current status of a database using SQLAlchemy's schema inspection
- capabilities, compare it to the current state of the database model as
- specified in Python, and generate a series of "candidate" migrations,
- rendering them into a new migration script as Python directives. The
- developer then edits the new file, adding additional directives and data
- migrations as needed, to produce a finished migration. Table and column
- level changes can be detected, with constraints and indexes to follow as
- well.
- * Full support for migrations generated as SQL scripts. Those of us who
- work in corporate environments know that direct access to DDL commands on a
- production database is a rare privilege, and DBAs want textual SQL scripts.
- Alembic's usage model and commands are oriented towards being able to run a
- series of migrations into a textual output file as easily as it runs them
- directly to a database. Care must be taken in this mode to not invoke other
- operations that rely upon in-memory SELECTs of rows - Alembic tries to
- provide helper constructs like bulk_insert() to help with data-oriented
- operations that are compatible with script-based DDL.
- * Non-linear, dependency-graph versioning. Scripts are given UUID
- identifiers similarly to a DVCS, and the linkage of one script to the next
- is achieved via human-editable markers within the scripts themselves.
- The structure of a set of migration files is considered as a
- directed-acyclic graph, meaning any migration file can be dependent
- on any other arbitrary set of migration files, or none at
- all. Through this open-ended system, migration files can be organized
- into branches, multiple roots, and mergepoints, without restriction.
- Commands are provided to produce new branches, roots, and merges of
- branches automatically.
- * Provide a library of ALTER constructs that can be used by any SQLAlchemy
- application. The DDL constructs build upon SQLAlchemy's own DDLElement base
- and can be used standalone by any application or script.
- * At long last, bring SQLite and its inablity to ALTER things into the fold,
- but in such a way that SQLite's very special workflow needs are accommodated
- in an explicit way that makes the most of a bad situation, through the
- concept of a "batch" migration, where multiple changes to a table can
- be batched together to form a series of instructions for a single, subsequent
- "move-and-copy" workflow. You can even use "move-and-copy" workflow for
- other databases, if you want to recreate a table in the background
- on a busy system.
- Documentation and status of Alembic is at http://alembic.zzzcomputing.com/
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