How to integrate AutoPatch with your development cycle

Its possible to run AutoPatch completely from the command-line, so that patch development and deployment may take place without need for a web application container.

The StandaloneMigrationLauncher is used for this, and an ant task to run this would look like this:

<target name="patch.database" depends="compile" description="Runs the patch system">
  <java
      fork="true"
      failonerror="true"
      classname="com.tacitknowledge.util.migration.jdbc.StandaloneMigrationLauncher">
    <classpath refid="inttest.classpath"/>
    <sysproperty key="migration.systemname" value="${application.name}"/>
  </java>
</target>

If you combine this rule with the patch.information ant target given above, it should be relatively easy to point at a database, determine its current patch level in a non-destructive way, and then execute patches.

Some development environments require individual developers to have their own set of settings so the default 'migration.properties' settings file might not work in this case. To overcome this issue it is possible to specify an optional 'migration.settings' parameter (either system property or command line argument) like this:

<target name="patch.database" depends="compile" description="Runs the patch system">
  <java
      fork="true"
      failonerror="true"
      classname="com.tacitknowledge.util.migration.jdbc.StandaloneMigrationLauncher">
    <classpath refid="inttest.classpath"/>
    <sysproperty key="migration.systemname" value="${application.name}"/>
    <sysproperty key="migration.settings" value="${username}.properties"/>
  </java>
</target>

If you happen to rely on command line arguments, please take a note that 'migration.systemname' must come first (e.g. index 0) followed by 'migration.settings' (e.g. index 1).