Generating migration file for a project using NestJS and TypeORM

Question

I'm trying to generate migration files for my entities, but whenever I run the command to create the entity, it creates an "empty" file, just the up and down methods are created.

I have added this script in my package.json file: "typeorm": "node --require ts-node/register ./node_modules/typeorm/cli.js".

In my app.module.ts, the connection is configured like this:

 TypeOrmModule.forRoot({
      type: 'mysql',
      host: database().host,
      port: parseInt(database().port),
      username: database().username,
      password: database().password,
      database: database().schema,
      entities: [Question, QuestionOption],
      migrations: ['src/migration/*{.ts,.js}'],
      cli: {
        migrationsDir: 'src/migration'
      },
      synchronize: true,
    })

Where database() it's a nestjs config file and get the values from an .env file.

The script I'm using to create the migration is: npm run typeorm migration:create -- -n QuestionTables -d src/migrations where need to specify the -d, otherwise the migration file is not created (even if it's specified in the cli of the forRoot method.

Do I need to write manually the SQL to create the tables?

What if I need to add a new column to an existing table, should I create a new migration file and write manually the SQL code to add that?

Another command that I tried to run was this one: npm run typeorm migration:generate -- -n QuestionTables -d src/migrations and here it gives me an error: " Error: No connection options were found in any orm configuration files."

Answer 1

The command npm run typeorm migration:create will generate empty migration file.

The command for migrations auto generation is: npm run typeorm migration:generate

As written in the error you received you need to specify the configuration file for the cli. Than means should extract the configuration passed to forRoot to a ts/json file. You'll need 2 files for that, 1 for the server's connection and another for migrations configuration.

For example:

// ormconfig.ts
export const config: TypeOrmModuleOptions = {
      type: 'mysql',
      host: database().host,
      port: parseInt(database().port),
      username: database().username,
      password: database().password,
      database: database().schema,
      entities: [Question, QuestionOption], // maybe you should also consider chage it to something like:  [__dirname + '/**/*.entity.ts', __dirname + '/src/**/*.entity.js']
      migrations: ['src/migration/*{.ts,.js}'],
      cli: {
        migrationsDir: 'src/migration'
      },
      synchronize: true,
    }

// ormconfig-migrations.ts

import {config} from './ormconfig';

export = config;

import {config} from './ormconfig';

TypeOrmModule.forRoot(config);

// package.json

"scripts": {
     ...
     "typeorm:cli": "ts-node -r tsconfig-paths/register ./node_modules/typeorm/cli -f ./ormconfig-migrations.ts",
     "migration-generate": "npm run typeorm:cli -- migration:generate -n"
}