# Rails ActiveRecord migrations, without Rails? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 7, 2008, 3:37am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-activerecord-migrations-without-rails/145244 "2008-08-07T03:37:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 3:37am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-activerecord-migrations-without-rails/145244/1 "2008-08-07T03:37:55Z")
Are there any frameworks out there that execute migrations as well as Rails does? Or how difficult of a task would it be to extract the migration functionality? The practicality of having version control on changes made to a database is a fantastic thing and I would love to get the migration functionality available to Rails and apply it to any database. I’ve started a very small app with newgen that does the initial bootstrapping (just builds the simple directory structure, a blank database.yml file and a simple Rakefile with some basic tasks), but I have no migration generation yet as I would like to borrow as much from Rails as possible (timestamps for versioning and such). If anyone could point me in a direction, or would like me to start up a project on Github, feel free to chime in. I think this would benefit many others aside from me. ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 3:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-activerecord-migrations-without-rails/145244/2 "2008-08-07T03:56:40Z")
On Aug 7, 2:37 am, Matthew W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Are there any frameworks out there that execute migrations as well as > Rails does? Or how difficult of a task would it be to extract the > migration functionality? You could certainly have an almost empty rails app containing nothing but migrations. With what I expect what be not too much work (and not involving much rocket science) you could extract the relevant rake tasks and do away with the empty husk of the application. Fred ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 3:57am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-activerecord-migrations-without-rails/145244/3 "2008-08-07T03:57:15Z")
On Aug 7, 2:55 am, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On Aug 7, 2:37 am, Matthew W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > wrote:\> Are there any frameworks out there that execute migrations as well as > > > Rails does? Or how difficult of a task would it be to extract the > > migration functionality? > > You could certainly have an almost empty rails app containing nothing > but migrations. With what I expect what be not too much work (and not > involving much rocket science) you could extract the relevant rake > tasks and do away with the empty husk of the application. Oh, and you can also use activerecord outside of rails completely - it’s a standalone framework. Fred ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 4:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-activerecord-migrations-without-rails/145244/4 "2008-08-07T04:00:59Z")
Frederick C. wrote: > On Aug 7, 2:55�am, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > wrote: > > > On Aug 7, 2:37�am, Matthew W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > > wrote:\> Are there any frameworks out there that execute migrations as well as > > > > > Rails does? �Or how difficult of a task would it be to extract the > > > migration functionality? > > > > You could certainly have an almost empty rails app containing nothing > > but migrations. With what I expect what be not too much work (and �not > > involving much rocket science) you could extract the relevant rake > > tasks and do away with the empty husk of the application. > > Oh, and you can also use activerecord outside of rails completely - > it’s a standalone framework. > > Fred I realize you can use ActiveRecord without and I do have a small base with a few tasks to fire off migrations, like I mentioned,but I would really like the migration generator that Rails provides and the other functionality for versioning and rolling back which is not so out of the box when using ActiveRecord standalone. I have considered just using an empty Rails project and cleaning up the rake file but that’s as clean of a solution as I would like though I may end up going that route. ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 4:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-activerecord-migrations-without-rails/145244/5 "2008-08-07T04:11:52Z")
On Aug 7, 3:00 am, Matthew W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > involving much rocket science) you could extract the relevant rake > > > functionality for versioning and rolling back which is not so out of the > > > box when using ActiveRecord standalone. Have you looked at the rake file ? There’s really not a lot too it. All the migration stuff together is just over 30 lines. (The migration generator stuff is not much more complicated, but the functionality is a little more dispersed) Eg the migrate task is just ActiveRecord::Migrator.migrate(“db/migrate/”, ENV[“VERSION”] ? ENV[“VERSION”].to\_i : nil) the rollback task is just ActiveRecord::Migrator.rollback(‘db/migrate/’, ENV[‘STEP’] ? ENV[‘STEP’].to\_i : 1) and so on. Fred ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 4:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-activerecord-migrations-without-rails/145244/6 "2008-08-07T04:24:38Z")
Frederick C. wrote: > On Aug 7, 3:00�am, Matthew W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > wrote: > > > > > involving much rocket science) you could extract the relevant rake > > > > functionality for versioning and rolling back which is not so out of the > > > > box when using ActiveRecord standalone. > > Have you looked at the rake file ? There’s really not a lot too it. > All the migration stuff together is just over 30 lines. (The migration > generator stuff is not much more complicated, but the functionality is > a little more dispersed) > > Eg the migrate task is just > > ActiveRecord::Migrator.migrate(“db/migrate/”, ENV[“VERSION”] ? > ENV[“VERSION”].to\_i : nil) > > the rollback task is just > > ActiveRecord::Migrator.rollback(‘db/migrate/’, ENV[‘STEP’] ? > ENV[‘STEP’].to\_i : 1) > > and so on. > > Fred Thanks for pointing out those tasks, it’s not too bad at all. I was mostly focusing on the generators which are as you mentioned a little more dispersed.