README

DBDiff is an automated database schema and data diff tool. It compares two databases, local or remote, and produces a migration file of the differences automatically.

When used alongside a compatible database migration tool, it can help enable database version control within your team or enterprise.

Features

Works on Windows, Linux & Mac command-line/Terminal because it has been developed in PHP
Connects to a source and target database to do the comparison diff, locally and remotely
Diffs can include changes to the schema and/or data, both in valid SQL to bring the target up-to-date with the source
Deterministic Output: SQL is generated in a stable, predictable order (tables, columns, and data), ensuring consistent migrations and test pass rates across different environments.
Some tables and/or fields can be ignored in the comparison with a YAML collection in the config file (see File Examples)
Diffs are SUPER fast and this tool has been tested with databases of multiple tables of millions of rows
Since this diff tool is being used for migrations, it provides up and down SQL in the same file
Works with existing migration tools like Flyway and Simple DB Migrate by specifying output template files/formats
Is Unicode aware, can work with UTF8 data, which includes foreign characters/symbols
Works with just MySQL for now, but we will be expanding to other DBs in the future on request (please create an issue and vote on it!)

Pre-requisites

You will need to have access to the command-line (Terminal/CMD/PowerShell)
You will need to have git installed
You will need to have PHP installed (version 7.4.x, 8.3.x, or 8.4.x)
You will need to have Composer installed

Note: Make a note of where composer.phar is installed as we will need it later on during Setup

PHP 7.4.x
PHP 8.3.x
PHP 8.4.x

Supported MySQL Database Versions

Other versions may work but are not actively supported. Feel free to contribute a PR to add official support.

MySQL 8.0.x
MySQL 8.4.x (LTS)
MySQL 9.3.x (Innovation)

Installation

On the command-line, use git to clone the ssh version:

git clone git@github.com:DBDiff/DBDiff.git

Or use git to clone the https version:

git clone https://github.com/DBDiff/DBDiff.git

Or download the .zip archive and unzip it to a folder of your choosing e.g. dbdiff:

https://github.com/DBDiff/DBDiff/archive/master.zip

Or use composer to include DBDiff as a project dependency:

php composer.phar require "dbdiff/dbdiff:@dev"

Or use composer to install DBDiff globally:

composer global require "dbdiff/dbdiff:@dev"

Create a PHAR build

Please first ensure in your php.ini file the phar.readonly setting is set to false , for example:

[Phar]
; http://php.net/phar.readonly
phar.readonly = false

Then in the root of the dbdiff repository to produce a Phar build simply run:

$ ./scripts/build

A dist folder should be created containing the following files:

dbdiff.phar
dbdiff.phar.gz

Feel free to rename dbdiff.phar to dbdiff and move it to /usr/local/bin or another directory of your choice.

You can also add it to your system's path if you wish to make it globally available on your system as a utility.

Docker

You may now use docker and docker-compose to create a local environment for DBDiff (for testing or production), including a PHP server with a database and the DBDiff CLI available as a service.

Please ensure you have docker and/or docker-compose installed locally, as well as a download of the git repository, before continuing.

Note: Please run these commands from the root of the DBDiff folder. Also the commands may need to be prepended with sudo on some systems.

Docker Standalone DBDiff CLI with PHP 7.3

# Build DBDiff CLI Image
docker build --tag "dbdiff:latest" --file "docker/Dockerfile" .

# Run DBDiff CLI Image as a Container
docker run -i -t --ipc=host --shm-size="1g" "dbdiff:latest" <command>

# Remove DBDiff CLI Image
docker image rm dbdiff:latest

Cross-Version Testing

You can easily test DBDiff against any combination of PHP and MySQL using the provided start.sh script.

# Run tests for a specific combination
./start.sh 8.3 8.0

# Run all 9 version combinations in parallel (3x speedup)
./start.sh all all --parallel

See the DOCKER.md file for extensive documentation on the Dockerized test runner, including flags for fast restarts, recording fixtures, and automated CI.

Removing Docker Compose DBDiff Environment

docker-compose down

Setup

Make sure you are in the root of your application for all the following steps, using 'cd' to navigate on the command line to where you have placed your "dbdiff" folder

We are going to assume that composer.phar is installed inside your "dbdiff" folder. If it is installed elsewhere you will need to use it's exact path

If you didn't install DBDiff with composer, install the dependencies of the project with: php composer.phar install
Make a .dbdiff file by following the File Examples and place it in the root of your "dbdiff" directory
Type ./dbdiff {dbdiff command here e.g. server1.db1:server1.db2} to start the app! See Command-Line API for more details on which commands you can run.

You should see something like...

ℹ Now calculating schema diff for table `foo`
ℹ Now calculating data diff for table `foo`
ℹ Now generating UP migration
ℹ Now generating DOWN migration
ℹ Writing migration file to /path/to/dbdiff/migration.sql
✔ Completed

Congratulations you have installed and ran DBDiff!

Command-Line API

Note: The command-line parameters will always override the settings in the .dbdiff config file

--server1=user:password@host1:port - Specify the source db connection details. If there is only one server the --server1 flag can be omitted
--server2=user:password@host2:port - Specify the target db connection details (if it’s different to server1)
--template=templates/simple-db-migrate.tmpl - Specifies the output template, if any. By default will be plain SQL
--type=schema or data or all - Specifies the type of diff to do either on the schema, data or both. schema is the default
--include=up or down or all - Specified whether to include the up, down or both data in the output. up is the default
--nocomments=true - By default automated comments starting with the hash (#) character are included in the output file, which can be removed with this parameter
--config=config.yaml - By default, DBDiff will look for a .dbdiff file in the current directory which is valid YAML, which may also be overridden with a config file that lists the database host, user, port and password of the source and target DBs in YAML format (instead of using the command line for it), or any of the other settings e.g. the format, template, type, include, nocomments. Please note: a command-line parameter will always override any config file.
server1.db1.table1:server2.db2.table3 or server1.db1:server2.db2 - The penultimate parameter is what to compare. This tool can compare just one table or all tables (entire db) from the database
--output=./output-dir/today-up-schema.sql - The last parameter is an output file and/or directory to output the diff to, which by default will output to the same directory the command is run in if no directory is specified. If a directory is specified, it should exist, otherwise an error will be thrown. If this path is not specified, the default file name becomes migration.sql in the current directory

Usage Examples

Example 1

$ ./dbdiff server1.db1:server2.db2

This would by default look for the .dbdiff config file for the DB connection details, if it’s not there the tool would return an error. If it’s there, the connection details would be used to compare the SQL of only the schema and output a commented migration.sql file inside the current directory which includes only the up SQL as per default

Example 2

$ ./dbdiff server1.development.table1:server2.production.table1 --nocomments=true --type=data

This would by default look for the .dbdiff config file for the DB connection details, if it’s not there the tool would return an error. If it’s there, the connection details would be used to compare the SQL of only the data of the specified table1 inside each database and output a .sql file which has no comments inside the current directory which includes only the up SQL as per default

Example 3

$ ./dbdiff --config=config.conf --template=templates/simple-db-migrate.tmpl --include=all server1.db1:server2.db2 --output=./sql/simple-schema.sql

Instead of looking for .dbdiff, this would look for config.conf (which should be valid YAML) for the settings, and then override any of those settings from config.conf for the --template and --include parameters given in the command-line parameters - thus comparing the source with the target database and outputting an SQL file called simple-schema.sql to the ./sql folder, which should already exist otherwise the program will throw an error, and which includes only the schema as an up and down SQL diff in the simple-db-migrate format (as specified by the template). This example would work perfectly alongside the simple-db-migrate tool

File Examples

.dbdiff

server1:
	user: user
	password: password
	port: port # for MySQL this is 3306
	host: host1 # usually localhost or 127.0.0.1
server2:
	user: user
	password: password
	port: port # for MySQL this is 3306
	host: host1 # usually localhost or 127.0.0.1
template: templates/simple-db-migrate.tmpl
type: all
include: all
nocomments: true
tablesToIgnore:
- table1
- table2
- table3
fieldsToIgnore:
	table1:
		- field1
		- field2
		- field3
	table4:
		- field1
		- field4

simple-db-migrate.tmpl

SQL_UP = u"""
{{ $up }}
"""
SQL_DOWN = u"""
{{ $down }}
"""

How Does the Diff Actually Work?

The following comparisons run in exactly the following order:

When comparing multiple tables: all comparisons should be run
When comparing just one table with another: only run the schema and data comparisons

Overall Comparison

Check both databases exist and are accessible, if not, throw an error
The database collation is then compared between the source and the target and any differences noted for the output

Schema Comparison

Looks to see if there are any differences in column numbers, name, type, collation or attributes
Any new columns in the source, which are not found in the target, are added

Data Comparison

And then for each table, the table storage type (e.g. MyISAM, CSV), the collation (e.g. utf8_general_ci), and number of rows are compared, in that order. If there are any differences they are noted before moving onto the next test
Next, both changed rows as well as missing rows from each table are recorded

Compatible Migration Tools

Project	Language / Package Manager	Description
Simple DB Migrate	Python / PIP	Generic database migration tool inpired on Rails migrations
Flyway	Java / Maven	Database Migrations Made Easy

Please do let us know if you're using any other migration tools with DBDiff, other than the ones listed here, so we can add it.

Questions & Support 💡

Create a new issue if you can't find yours being addressed
Watch this space, as we're in the process of creating a discourse forum for all the DBDiff community

The documentation so far is what you see on this page, however this will slowly be expanded onto it's own website

If you are a company or organisation interested in commercial support packages for DBDiff please get in touch

Contributions 💖

Please make sure to read the Contributing Guide before making a pull request.

Thank you to all the people who already contributed to DBDiff!

Releasing 🚀

DBDiff uses automated workflows for versioning and distribution:

1. Automated Release (Recommended)

You can trigger a formal release directly from the GitHub Actions tab:

Select the "Release DBDiff" workflow.
Click "Run workflow" and specify the new version (e.g. v2.0.0).
This will automatically:
- Build the production PHAR using scripts/build.
- Create and push the Git tag.
- Create a GitHub Release with build assets attached.
- Notify Packagist to update the stable version.

2. Manual/Local Release

If you need to tag a release locally:

./scripts/release.sh v2.0.0
git push origin v2.0.0

Then manually upload the files from the dist/ folder to the GitHub Release page.

Feedback 💬

If you've made it down here, you're probably a fan 😉

Could you please kindly spare 2 minutes to give us your feedback on DBDiff:

https://forms.gle/gjdJxZxdVsz7BRxg7

We read each and every suggestion that comes through.

License

MIT

Made with 💖 by

dbdiff / dbdiff

Maintainers

Details