# Data Migrations using yaml, what to do about large text fields

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/data-migrations-using-yaml-what-to-do-about-large-text-fields/137850>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [May 16, 2008, 9:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/data-migrations-using-yaml-what-to-do-about-large-text-fields/137850 "2008-05-16T21:42:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cephas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/e0b2c6/32.png) [@cephas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cephas)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2008, 9:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/data-migrations-using-yaml-what-to-do-about-large-text-fields/137850/1 "2008-05-16T21:42:34Z")

</div>

Hello,

I have a data in a FileMaker database that I migrate to my evolving  
rails app via migrations via yaml.

This works great because I can change my application schema easily,  
and then output a matching  
yaml file to migrate the data.

The problem that I am having now is that I want to add text fields to  
the application, but  
the large chunks of text make my yaml file fail during migration.

I would like to keep a simple text format for my data. Then migrate  
the data in this format  
to my rails application.

I have explored using xml, but it adds too much complexity.

Have thought of some combination of yaml for the simple fields and  
then  
xml for the few fields that contain large text blobs.

I suspect that other’s have come across the same problem and may have  
some useful suggestions.

Thanks in advance 🙂

- Pete

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cephas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/e0b2c6/32.png) [@cephas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cephas)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2008, 9:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/data-migrations-using-yaml-what-to-do-about-large-text-fields/137850/2 "2008-05-16T21:49:00Z")

</div>

> I suspect that other’s have come across the same problem and may have  
> some useful suggestions.

Escape the text blobs in the yaml. Maybe turn them into base64 encoded  
strings. Or for each text field write it out to a real text file  
(unique  
filename) and reference that in the yaml. Not as elegant, but both  
should  
work… and if this is motsly a one time thing, not too hackish 🙂