Is there a “poor man's” alternative to RedGate for scripting out entire database schema? [closed]

Answer 1

Michael Lang, when you right-click on the database and choose to create a script, there are several options boxes that you will need to click in order for everything to be generated. 2005 is much easier in this respect, but 2000 can do this, you just need to select the proper options.

Answer 2

As you mentioned in SQL Server 2000 the command to use is:

While in Enterprise Manager select the database you want to script objects from and then Right Click and select All Tasks -> Generate SQL Scripts...

While in the Options Pane it is handy to select option Create one file per object it that way you can store each object in source control separately.

So then whenever you do some updates on a tableA you can check it out in source control to let others know that you work on it and the after you finish you can script that single object and save check it in.

To script a single object you can you the same option All Tasks -> Generate SQL Scripts... and then select just that one object.

The only problem with that approach is when you want to restore the complete database you need to take care of dependent objects in the sense that the top level object must be restored before the ones dependent on them.

Ironically when you script the whole database to one file the objects are not ordered in terms of dependency but rather based on the creation date. That leads to errors when you try to use it to restore the complete DB.

We ended up creating batch file that would create each object separately calling "osql "

And that all worked pretty well at that time

Now we use SQLCompare Pro and it safes us from or that hassle, but if you do not make release frequently you can live without it.

Answer 3

Run SQL Server Management Studio, right click on the database and select Script Database as > Create to > file

That's for SQL Server 2005. SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Manager has a similar command. Just right-click on the database > All Tasks > Generate Scripts.

EDIT: In SQL Server 2005, you can select "Database" in the object explorer pane and select several databases in the details pane. Then, right-click on your selection and "Script Database as > Create to > file". This will cause it to put them all into one script and it will include all tables, keys, stored procedures, and constraints.

Answer 4

In addition to the above answers, I'd like to suggest that (for future projects, at least) you don't have you master database design in the database itself.

One way to achieve this is to either simply maintain your database tables, procedures etc as 'CREATE' scripts from day one, and devise a master script that will pull all of the individual scripts together for deployment to a database of your choosing.

A more sophisticated solution is to use something like Visual Studio Database Edition (Probably too pricey, if your comments are anything to go by) which allows you to treat each database object as a node in a project, whilst still allowing the whole thing to be deployed with a few clicks.

The explanation of both of these options is over-simplified, as there are a lot of other issues - versioning, data migration etc - but the main principle is the same.

Once you've extracted your script - using one of the other answers - you may want to consider using this script as the basis for your 'master'.

Just keep the 'design' out of the database - that's purely for 'implementations'.

Try to think of the process as similar to developing code - the source and the binaries are kept separate, with the latter being generated from the former.