Eclipselink update existing tables

Question

Maybe I got it wrong but i though that JPA was able to update an existing table (model changed adding a column) but is not working in my case.

I can see in the logs eclipselink attempting to create it but failing because it already exists. Instead of trying an update to add the column it keeps going.

<property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.url" value="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/jwrestling"/> <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.password" value="password"/> <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.driver" value="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"/> <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.user" value="user"/> <property name="eclipselink.ddl-generation" value="create-tables"/> <property name="eclipselink.logging.logger" value="org.eclipse.persistence.logging.DefaultSessionLog"/> <property name="eclipselink.logging.level" value="INFO"/> 

And here's the table with the change (online column added)

 [EL Warning]: 2010-05-31 14:39:06.044--ServerSession(16053322)--Exception [EclipseLink-4002] (Eclipse Persistence Services - 2.1.0.v20100517-r7246): org.eclipse.persistence.exceptions.DatabaseException Internal Exception: com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.MySQLSyntaxErrorException: Table 'account' already exists Error Code: 1050 Call: CREATE TABLE account (ID INTEGER NOT NULL, USERNAME VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL, SECURITY_KEY VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL, EMAIL VARCHAR(64) NOT NULL, STATUS VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL, TIMEDATE DATETIME NOT NULL, PASSWORD VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL, ONLINE TINYINT(1) default 0 NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (ID)) Query: DataModifyQuery(sql="CREATE TABLE account (ID INTEGER NOT NULL, USERNAME VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL, SECURITY_KEY VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL, EMAIL VARCHAR(64) NOT NULL, STATUS VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL, TIMEDATE DATETIME NOT NULL, PASSWORD VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL, ONLINE TINYINT(1) default 0 NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (ID))") [EL Warning]: 2010-05-31 14:39:06.074--ServerSession(16053322)--Exception [EclipseLink-4002] (Eclipse Persistence Services - 2.1.0.v20100517-r7246): org.eclipse.persistence.exceptions.DatabaseException 

After this it continues with the following.

Am I doing something wrong or is a bug?

Answer 1

As of EclipseLink 2.4, you can use this in the specification of your persistence unit:

<property name="eclipselink.ddl-generation" value="create-or-extend-tables" />