Data modeling is a journey - manage yours with jrny
A lot of schema-migration tools already exist. They work, and they work pretty well at that, but there are (subjectively) some big annoyances and I just don't like them.
jrny offers an alternative1 for people who...
... would rather write SQL than translate it to method calls or YAML entries that are often more verbose and less documented
... prefer to install compiled binaries rather than manage a language and dependencies on whatever system(s) run migrations
... like the idea of single responsibility, especially if multiple applications (potentially in different repos and written in different languages) access the same tables
... believe that separating migrations from application deploys encourages one to write non-breaking migrations and helps enable zero-downtime updates
... think down-migrations are unnecessary2 at best and dangerous at worst, especially as relying on them during development makes it trivially easy to 'change' history by forgetting to add an index, check constraint, etc.
1
jrnyis still in a prototype state and currently only supports PostgreSQL. While it could theoretically be extended fairly easily in the future to support other databases, extensibility is not an immediate goal.2 Down-migrations are great for iteratively developing complex schema changes, as it lets the developer make a small change, roll it back, add another change, etc. until the migration performs as intended. An alternative, especially for those of us who prefer SQL, is to iterate on statements within a transaction in another client (eg.
psql) and then just add the final statements to a revision & apply. Using a transaction and another client to test SQL statements also means the developer can explore schema changes interactively. Rollbacks are great, m'kay.
jrny is currently only pre-compiled for mac and can be installed either via direct download from releases or via homebrew:
bash
homebrew install kevlarr/jrny/jrny
While jrny has only been fully tested on macOS (CI runs unit tests on Ubuntu, but no tests currently interact with filesystem or database), there are zero external dependencies and it
Should Just Work™ on other platforms, as long as you compile it yourself.
Assuming cargo is installed (easiest is using rustup) then simply run:
```bash $ cargo install jrny
Updating crates.io index
Downloaded jrny v1.3.0
Downloaded 1 crate (28.6 KB) in 0.39s
Installing jrny v1.3.0
...
...
...
Compiling jrny v1.3.0
Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 2m 03s
Installing /Users/jrny v1.3.0 (executable jrny)
```
There are 4 steps to managing schema changes with jrny:
beginplanreviewembarkProject setup is simple - all that is required is a config file and an empty revisions directory alongside it.
These can be created manually or via jrny begin.
```bash
$ jrny begin
A journey has begun
The default jrny.toml file specifies how jrny will connect to the target database, for instance:
``` [connection] strategy = { type = "env-url-string", var-name = "JRNYDATABASEURL" }
[table] schema = "public" name = "jrny_revision" ```
This means that jrny will look for a connection string in the JRNY_DATABASE_URL environment variable
and store revision history in the public.jrny_revision table. The variable name can be changed any time
but, once revisions are applied and tracked, the schema and table name should not be changed, as jrny
would then attempt to apply all revisions from the beginning.
The config file can be freely renamed if desired; however, this requires passing the filepath in via -c to all commands.
To create a new SQL revision, run jrny plan [-c <path-to-config>] either specifying the path to the
config file via -c or (if ommitted) by looking for jrny.toml in the current directory.
```bash $ jrny plan create-users
Created revisions/1606743300.create-users.sql
$ jrny plan 'name with spaces' -c /path/to/my/config.toml
Created /path/to/my/revisions/1606743400.name with spaces.sql ```
This will create a (mostly) empty SQL file for you to populate with wonderful statements.
Notice that jrny encourages transactions per-revision but you are free to remove these,
particularly if you need to execute statements outside of a transaction.
``` bash $ cat /path/to/my/revisions/1606743400.name with spaces.sql -- 1606743400.name with spaces.sql
begin; -- Start revisions
-- End revisions commit; ```
To summarize the state of revisions, run jrny review [-c <path-to-config>], again either specifying the config
file to use or defaulting to looking in current directory.
This will list all ordered revisions, each with time of creation as well as time of application, if applied to the specified database.
Additionally, jrny will also ensure that...
... all applied revisions are still present on disk
... all applied revision files have not changed since application (compared with SHA-256 checksum)
```bash $ jrny review
The journey thus far
Revision Created Applied 1606743368.create-users.sql 30-Nov-2020 08:36:08 30-Nov-2020 08:38:43 The file has changed after being applied 1606749730.another revision.sql 30-Nov-2020 10:22:10 30-Nov-2020 10:23:12 1606749751.drop-things.sql 30-Nov-2020 10:22:31 30-Nov-2020 10:23:12 No corresponding file could not be found 1606749776.create-more-things.sql 30-Nov-2020 10:22:56 30-Nov-2020 10:23:12 1606749809.so many things.sql 30-Nov-2020 10:23:29 -- ```
To apply pending revisions, run jrny embark [-c <path-to-config>].
Revisions will be reviewed prior to applying any pending, and if files have changed or are no longer
present on disk, jrny will issue an error and exit without applying any new revisions.
For instance, given the history above, you would see...
```bash $ jrny embark
Error: Failed to run revisions: 1 changed since being applied 1 no longer present on disk ```
If the files were restored and reverted, jrny would move forward with applying 1606749809.so many things.sql.
``` $ jrny plan create-pets
Created revisions/1606753722.create-pets.sql
$ echo " CREATE TABLE pet ( id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT NOT NULL );
INSERT INTO pet (name) VALUES ('Eiyre'), ('Cupid'), ('My imaginary iguana'); " >> revisions/1606753722.create-pets.sql ```
... then jrny embark would output:
``` $ jrny embark
jpplying 1 revision(s)
1606753722.create-pets.sql ```
Attempting to apply revisions again would simply find none available.
```
$ jrny embark
No revisions to apply ```
Refactoring in Rust is fun - which is good, because there's a lot of room for clearer patterns and modules.
Revisions are great, but we don't normally need revisions from 2 years ago sitting in the directory. There should be a command to help 'reset' history, potentially archiving them into a table..?
No description necessary; there's barely any test coverage, and there's hardly any CI.