How can I perform a data compare on a VS 2013 SSDT project programmatically? - visual-studio-2013

Visual Studio 2013 has a feature that allows for performing a data compare between your SSDT project and a target database.
According to another post here on SO, there are certain requirements with regards to performing such a compare.
Those requirements taken into consideration, I want to do something like this as a part of our build and deployment process:
Publish any DB schema changes to the target database(s) to make sure that source and target have exactly the same tables, columns, SP's, etc. to comply with the requirements mentioned in the link above
Run a data compare and generate an update script, or publish any changes in the source DB directly to the target DB
Currently, I have a script which takes care of bullet no. 1 by doing a schema compare, using a DACPAC, via sqlpackage.exe. It does not look like it is possible to perform a data compare using sqlpackage, though, and I have not found any other alternatives yet. In VS 2010 it was possible to run a data compare via the command window, but I have not seen any documentation regarding this in VS 2013...
Thus, my question is if there exists an API and/or other tools that allows for a data compare to be run programmatically through e.g. a Powershell script.

It appears you are correct, for schema diff there is command line support as long as SSDT is installed on disk (more details here), but there is no programmatic interface yet for data compare and update.

Related

How to re-deploy, re-create database on each test run

Currently I'm using Visual Studio 2012 RC and SQL Server 2012 RTM.
I'd like to know how to re-deploy/re-create a test database for each test run.
Keep in mind I've a SQL Server database project for the database using Visual Studio 2012's template.
Actually I'm not very sure about an idea I got in my mind, but .testsettings file has Setup and cleanup scripts. Is this the way to go? For example, a PowerShell script reading the database project generated script and executing it against the database?
I guess there're better ways of doing that and it should be an out-of-the-box solution but I ignore it and Google doesn't help me in finding the right solution.
As mentioned you'll probably want to use the VS 2012 .Local.testsettings > Setup and Cleanup scripts to create / tear down you SQL Server database.
For the script you may want to use powershell with a .dacpac (rather than just a T-SQL script), since you are using a SSDT project. Here's a link to some example code - in particular you may want to take a look at the 'Deploy-Dac' command.
If you are unfamiliar with .dacpacs as the (build) output of SSDT-created database projects, take a look at this reference link.
Edit: Although this doesn't answer the question in a plain SQL Server way, an easy Entity Framework approach would be the following: I found that I could create and destroy my database every time correctly by using the DbContext.Database.CreateIfNotExists() and DbContext.Database.Delete() methods in my setup and cleanup phases of my tests.
The fastest solution, while a bit of a hack, is really straightforward. You can set the DB Projects properties under the debugging tab to "always re-created DB". Then test in two clicks, do a debug/build, then run all tests. You should get a freshly built DB on localDB for you tests to be ran against. You can also change the target for the debugging DB (again the DB projects properties) to whatever you want, so you can deploy to a .dacpac, or to an existing SQL DB or wherever. It means testing in two steps, and if your build is long, it may be annoying, but it works. Otherwise, I believe scripting is your only option.

Compare Lines of Code using VS 2010 & TFS

Using TFS and Visual Studio 2010, is it possible to get a report of the number of lines of code each team member has written?
I know the Annotate feature allows you to see who is responsible for all of the code within a file, but is there anything that would aggregate this into a total number for each team member??
I wrote a powershell script that requires TFS Power Tools and takes an extremely long time to run, and is really kind of embarrassing code because it's the first thing I've written in powershell. You're welcome to grab it from my bitbucket repository. If you fix or improve anything, please send me an update.
All it does recursively go through (almost all) the files from the current path, and run annotate on each one, grab the changeset # from each line and increment a dictionary entry for that changeset, then loops through each changeset and finds the responsible user and adds that changeset's lines into that user's dictionary entry. It spits it out in a html table, so run it like LineCount.ps1 > LineCount.html
You may be able to use http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms244698%28v=VS.90%29.aspx if you're running a version of SQL capable of using data cubes

Managing database scripts in your solutions

I usually create a solution folder in Visual Studio and put my DB scripts in them. I always use at least this set of scripts:
Drop model
Create model script
User functions
Stored procedures
Static data (lookup tables)
Test data (not deployed)
Then I simply combine them and run against an SQL Server so I'm able to recreate the whole DB in a single step (by combining these scripts into a single one and executing it).
Anyway. I've never used projects in either:
Visual Studio or
SQL Management Studio
I've tried creating SQL Server 2008 Database Project in Visual Studio 2010, but I'm somehow overwhelmed by all the possible server settings (which I prefer to stay default as set on the server anyway). So I'm a bit confused: Should I use this project template or should I just do the same thing I always did?
What do you use and why? What are advantages I may benefit from by using either?
If I were you I would continue to do it the way you are doing it. In fact I do! The advantages of having the actual .sql files right there in a folder for you to use/edit/look at in my opinion are far better than the advantages you get by using a DB project. DB Project would be used if you were doing something like Storage Reports, were you have to communicate with like 8 databases and compare then to 8 different databases and save result sets etc... Now don't get my wrong there are advantages of Database Projects, I just don't think they are actually doing much help when you have such a simple setup that works already.
Advantages of the SQL Server 2008 Database Project in VS10:
Not having to switch back and forth
from your current client you use to
communicate with your SQL server.
Decent Data and Schema compare tools.
Gives you a one-click way to reverse
engineer a database into source
control, and keep it up to date.
You can compare projects to physical
databases and vice-versa. (This makes it pretty easy to keep your database up to date, no matter where you make change it: file system database project, or in the physical database itself)
If the current tool your using is not specifically tailored to SQL Server, this one is.
Extremely helpful if you need to do
unit tests directly on the database
without using abstractions.
If you're looking for something a little less complicated, you might want to try SQL Source Control. This won't even require you to maintain scripts, as it doesn't this for you behind the scenes. It will, however, only work as a solution for you if you use either TFS or SVN. And it costs $295...
It has a 28-day trial period, so if you're happy to try it out, I'd be interested in your feedback.

How do you work on Oracle packages in a collaborative, version-controlled environment?

I'm working in a multi-developer environment in Oracle with a large package. We have a DEV => TST => PRD promotion pattern. Currently, all package edits are made directly in TOAD and then compiled into the DEV package.
We run into two problems:
Concurrent changes need to be promoted on different schedules. For instance, developer A makes a change that needs to be promoted tomorrow while developer B is concurrently working on a change that won't be promoted for another two weeks. When it comes promotion time, we find ourselves manually commenting out stuff that isn't being promoted yet and then uncommenting it afterwards...yuck!!!
If two developers are making changes at the same exact time and one of them compiles, it wipes out the other developer's changes. There isn't a nice merge; instead the latest compile wins.
What strategies would you recommend to get around this? We are using TFS for our source-control but haven't yet utilized this with our Oracle packages.
P.S. I've seen this posting, but it doesn't fully answer my question.
The key is to adopt a practice of only deploying code from the source control system. I'm not familiar with TSF, but it must implement the concepts of branches, tags, etc. The question of what to deploy then falls out of the build and release tagging in the source control system.
Additional tips (for Oracle):
it works best if you split the package spec and body into different files that use a consistent file pattern for each (e.g. ".pks" for package spec, and ".pkb" for package body). If you use an automated build process that can process file patterns then you can build all of the specs and then the bodies. This also minimizes object invalidations if you are only deploying a package body.
put the time in to configure an automated build process that is driven from a release or build state of your source control system. If you have even a moderate number of db code objects it will pay to be able to build the code into a reference system and compare it to your qa or production system.
See my answer about Tools to work with stored procedures in Oracle, in a team (which I have just retagged).
Bottom line : don't modify procedures directly with TOAD. Store the source as files, that you will store in source control, modify then execute.
Plus, I would highly recommend that each developer works on its own copy of the database (use Oracle Express, which is free). You can do that if you store all the scripts to create the database in source control. More insight can be found here.
To avoid 2 developers working on the same package at the same time:
1) Use your version control system as the source of the package code. To work on a package, the developer must first check out the package from version control; nobody else can check the package out until this developer checks it back in.
2) Don't work directly on the package code in Toad or any other IDE. You have no clue whether the code you are working on there is correct or has been modified by one or more other developers. Work on the code in the script you have checked out from version control, and run that into the database to compile the package. My preference is to use a nice text editor (TextPad) and SQL Plus, but you can do this in Toad too.
3) When you have finished, check the script back into version control. Do not copy and paste code out of the database into your script (see point 2 again).
The downside (if it is one) of this controlled approach is that only one developer at a time can work on a package. This shouldn't be a major problem as long as:
You keep packages down to a reasonable size (in terms of WHAT they do, not how many lines of code or number of procedures in them). Don't have one big package that holds all the code.
Developers are encouraged to check out code only when ready to work on it, and to check it back in as soon as they have finished making and testing their changes.
We use Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio.NET...plugs right into TFS
we do it with a Dev database for every stream, and labels for the different streams.
Our Oracle licensing gives us unlimited dev/test instances, but we are an ISV, you may have a different licensing option
You can use the Oracle developer tools for VS or you can use sql developer. SQL developer integrates with Subversion and CVS and you can download it for free. See here: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/sql_developer/files/what_is_sqldev.html
We use Toad for Oracle with the TFS MSSCCI provider against TFS 2008. We use a Custom Tool that pulls database checkins from source control and packages them for release.
To my knowledge Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio.Net doesn't have any real source control integration with TFS or otherwise.
You might consider Toad Extensions for Visual Studio though it's not cheap, maybe $4k I think.
Another option is the Oracle Change Management Pack but believe it requires the Enterprise edition of Oracle which is much more pricey.
You may be interested in Gitora www.gitora.com. It helps managing Oracle database objects with Git.
This article about collaborative development with the Oracle database can also be helpful: http://blog.gitora.com/plsql-how-to-develop-two-features-simultaneously-but-deploy-only-one/
Full disclosure: I am the developer and author of the article.

TFS annotate/blame summary report for a project

In Team Foundation Server, I know that you can use the Annotate feature to see who last edited each line in a particular file (equivalent to "Blame" in CVS). What I'd like to do is akin to running Annotate on every file in a project, and get a summary report of all the developers who have edited a file in the project, and how many lines of code they currently "own" in that project.
Aside from systematically running Annotate of each file, I can't see a way to do this. Any ideas that would make this process faster?
PS - I'm doing to this to see how much of a consultant's code still remains in a particular (rather large) project, not to keep tabs on my developers, in case you're worried about my motivation :)
It's easy enough to use the "tf.exe history" command recursively across a directory of files in TFS. This will tell you who changed what files.
However what you're after is a little bit more than this - you want to know if the latest versions of any files have lines written by a particular user.
The Team Foundation Power Tools ship with a command-line version of annotate called "tfpt.exe annotate". This has a /noprompt option to direct the output to the console, but it only outputs the changeset id - not the user name.
You could also use the TFS VersionControl object model to write a tool that does exactly what you need.
If you install the TFS Power tools (at least for VS2005); it's called annotate.
It might be part of VS2008...
You can use TFS Analysis Cube to see generate a code churn report, which I believe is something you would like.
Annotate is now part of Visual Studio (I think it was introduced in VS 2010).
Docs
I'm writing an answer to an 8 year old question :). Its not really a full answer, but a suggestion to look into excel reports for TFS.
TFS2013 / 2015 on prem has something has an excel report that can be used to visualize Code Churn.
In VS open team explorer then select "Documents" then explode "Excel Reports". I believe Code Churn report has something like discussed. The report is made by some default project template so I think tfs2013 on prem just creates it.
Code Churn Excel Report VS2015
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd695782.aspx
I had very similar requirement to get details of particular attribute in a file e.g. who added, when, related work items etc.; Following GitHub project is having implementation to get required details and required minimal changes to work with multiple files or project -
SonarQube SCM TFVC plugin
It requires analysis to be executed from Windows machines with the Team Foundation Server Object Model installed (download for TFS 2013).
This blog post is also having good explaination and sample application -
TFS SDK: Connecting to TFS 2010 & TFS 2012 Programmatically

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