I'm at the point in my hobby project where I'd like to be able to change my models without losing all my test data. And I'm too lazy to do manual dumps and edit the SQL in place before reimporting it.
I want a system
- that is transparent to the user: if my database is at schema version 1, and my code is at version 3, I want it to be automatically upgraded to version 3 on server startup.
- that is not too hard on the programmer: dropping a numbered Python or SQL script in a directory ought to be sufficient to define a transition from schema version X to schema version X+1.
- that handles errors gracefully: makes a backup of the database with the old schema version; runs my script in a transaction and aborts that transaction if the conversion fails (while showing me enough information to debug the problem).
- allows prototyping without having to increment the schema number for every little change I make to the models; I should be the one who decides that a new schema is ready to go out to the world.
I've been glancing at SQLAlchemy-Migrate, since I've been brought up to believe NIHing is Bad. But Migrate is scary. I have to admit that the longer I stare at its documentation, the less I can describe why I think so. All those shell commands—but there's an API for invoking them from Python, so maybe I can achieve my goals. I'll have to try and see.