Frequently Asked Questions for the Command Line

How do I activate the command line tools?

To use the command line, you must have a SQL Data Compare Pro, or SQL Bundle Pro, or SQL Toolbelt license. If you do not have a license, you will be able to use the command line for 14 days. To redistribute your applications, you will need a SQL Toolkit license. For more information, visit our Web site at www.red-gate.com or send us an e-mail at info@red-gate.com

Can I distribute the command line tools?

If you have a valid SQL Toolkit serial number, you can distribute the command line tools. For more information, see Integrating the Command Line with Applications.

How can I include or exclude specific tables?

You can use the /include or /exclude switch with regular expressions to do this. For examples, see Selecting Single Tables for Comparison and Selecting Tables with Unrelated Names.

How do I schedule a database comparison?

You can use the Microsoft® Windows® Scheduled Task wizard to schedule a comparison by creating a script to run the comparison.

For example, to compare the data in two databases, you could create the following script:

C:

cd path_to_installation_folder

SQLDataCompare /db1:FirstDatabaseName /db2:SecondDatabaseName >> log_file

where:

• path_to_installation_folder is the path to the folder in which you installed the tool. By default, this is C:\Program Files\Red Gate SQL Bundle 5. Alternatively, you can add the installation folder to your PATH environment variable and omit this line.
• FirstDatabaseName and SecondDatabaseName are the names of the databases that you want to compare.
• log_file is the full path to the log file. For example, C:\SQLCmdLine\Log.txt

In this example MS-DOS batch scripting is used, a basic scripting language that is supported on all versions of Windows. If preferred, you could use VBScript, JScript, PHP, Perl, Python or any other scripting language of your choice.

Save the script as a .bat file. You can then specify the .bat file as the program to run from within the Scheduled Task wizard by browsing to it.

What objects are included or excluded when I use a project?

When you use a project, all objects that were selected for inclusion when the project was saved are automatically included; you do not need to explicitly include them using the /include switch. You can override the inclusion by specifying the /exclude switch as required. For examples, see Selecting Single Tables for Comparison and Selecting Tables with Unrelated Names.

How do I integrate the command line tools with applications?

For information about how to integrate the command line tools with applications that you distribute to your customers, see Integrating the Command Line with Applications.