Command Line

SQL Delta can run without user intervention by adding a project name or project file name to the command line of the executable. Additionally using scheduling software such as the task scheduler within Windows.

First step is create a new project and define the various details such as server and database name. 

Then select the On Completion Tab within edit project and define the tasks you wish to run, if any, once the project has run. Activate the On Completion events.

Save the project, ideally giving it a meaningful name prior to saving.

Create a shortcut to SQLDelta.exe and add to the target the name of your project. If the project name has spaces then enclose the project name in quotes. Multiple projects can be added to the command line.

For example: ...\SQLDelta.exe "My CLTest"

Now open the shortcut and SQL Delta will immediately run the My CLTest project.

Command Line Options

sqldelta.exe "project name" "project name 2"... /Q /A /M:x

"Project Name" = The name as shown in the project list case insensitive or the project filename including path.

/Q = Quit or Silent mode, the user interface is not shown and SQL Delta runs silently and will shut down automatically when the last project and last event has run.

/A = Run All Checked projects. In the project manager you can check projects and /A will run all project that have been checked. There is no need to add a project name in this instance.

/M:x = Monitor override. SQL Delta is shown on the last used monitor. If that monitor is no longer physically available however appears to SQL Delta to be available then you may not be able to access SQL Delta. 

Run SQLDelta.exe /M:0 to force SQL Delta to display on the primary monitor or enter the monitor number to ensure SQL Delta always starts on a specific monitor.

Silent Mode

Running a project using /Q Quiet or Silent mode doesn't output results since the project is normally designed to display results in the user interface. On Completion events must be used to create log file which outputs the results of the project combined with other On Completion events that can be run to enhance the command line experience.

Things to do with Command Line

All of these tasks use On Completion Events to perform extra tasks beyond simply running the project.

• On schedule run a schema view project and set On Completion Event to save a snapshot of the database. This snapshot is essentially a schema backup and could be used as a simple version control system.
• On schedule run a schema compare project and save the sync script to file and email the file to a central repository.
• On schedule run a data compare project, generate the sync script and execute the script to synchronize multiple databases to a central database.

Changes from Version 5

In version 5 the command line process required manual editing of the project for the project to run and product some results. In version 6 this is not required and On Completion events replace the need to manually change the project.

In version 5 some level of logging was automatically done when running in command line mode and now this must be configured using On Completion events per project.