# Organizing the db/migrate folder

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/organizing-the-db-migrate-folder/65263>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 17, 2006, 3:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/organizing-the-db-migrate-folder/65263 "2006-08-17T03:01:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![martin-ga](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@martin-ga](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/martin-ga)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 3:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/organizing-the-db-migrate-folder/65263/1 "2006-08-17T03:01:23Z")

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Hiall,

I was wondering how you guys are organizing your migrations files under  
db/migrate? I have like 60 database tables initially, and if I exercise  
migrations the way they should be exercised, I guess this will become  
even  
more files … Now maybe you say 70 files ain’t that much anyway 🙂 but  
the  
thing of course is that these files logically belong to different areas  
of  
my application (domain), that’s why I really would like to group them in  
folders for easier navigation and making the structure explicit. I read  
about how rails doesn’t care about putting controllers and models in  
subfolders, tried that out and it worked, although what I really like to  
do  
in the end is properly scope these things with modules. However,  
migrations  
don’t seem to get recognized in subfolders of db/migrate.

Does anyone know of a solution? Or do I really need to have 60+  
oftentimes  
logically unrelated files under one folder?

Thx in advance!

Martin G.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![martin-ga](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@martin-ga](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/martin-ga)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 3:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/organizing-the-db-migrate-folder/65263/2 "2006-08-17T03:10:23Z")

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> I was wondering how you guys are organizing your migrations files under  
> db/migrate?

switched off of SQL a few months ago. not looking back 🙂

> more files … Now maybe you say 70 files ain’t that much anyway 🙂 but the  
> thing of course is that these files logically belong to different areas of  
> my application (domain), that’s why I really would like to group them in  
> folders for easier navigation and making the structure explicit. I read  
> don’t seem to get recognized in subfolders of db/migrate.
> 
> Does anyone know of a solution? Or do I really need to have 60+ oftentimes  
> logically unrelated files under one folder?

migrations are bound to a specific numeric order. putting them in  
folders would mean theyd still need to be numbered, so you want  
forms/04\_steak\_dinner\_registrants.rb and venues/05\_dining\_rooms.rb ?

i would consider exposing your schema via resolvable URIs which return  
schema description, this is the foundation of the semantic web. then you  
can do as many sub’folders’ as you want…

i think the problem youre describing is the dichotomy of migrations  
versus model code. maybe you want dr nic’s magic models, or the inverse  
of that, or an RDF store. the current way is definitely suboptimal, but  
porably the most pragmatic, in terms of levering existing practices, and  
avoiding black-magic which is likely to fail