EF Migrations migrate.exe generate script

Question

I'm playing around with Entity framework and continuous builds. So far i'm able to run a migration or series of migrations without any problem by using migrate.exe and the appropriate arguments.

However, i've hit trouble when trying to get migrate.exe to kick out a script, rather than perform the migration, in the same way as I could get by running

update-database -TargetMigration TestMigration -script

from within Package Manager Console in Visual Studio.

Is there currently a way to do this?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Since the 10/22/2017 you can do it thanks to this PR: https://github.com/aspnet/EntityFramework6/commit/02ec6b8c9279f93f80eeed1234e5ce0acfce5f31

Here the Entity Framework 6.2 release notes that implements this functionality (see 'Migrate.exe should support -script option' section): https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2017/10/26/entity-framework-6-2-runtime-released/

Follow those steps:

1. Copy the file migrate.exe from the '\packages\EntityFramework.6.2.0\tools' to the target 'bin' folder (for example on the production server) after that you deployed the new assembly that contains the new migrations
2. Open the command line in the folder and launch this command:

migrate.exe yourMigrationAssembly.dll /startupConfigurationFile=”..\web.config” /scriptFile="migrationOutput.sql"

It will generate the the file "migrationOutput.sql" that contains the SQL you have to execute on your target environment DB based on the migrations that are not yet applied on it.

Answer 2

It is currently not supported. Please add your vote to the issue: Migrations: -Script for Migrate.exe