Tip: Recover From Failed Rails 'down' Migration

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        From: http://jamis.jamisbuck.org/articles/2005/12/14/two-tips-for-working-with-databases-in-rails

The second tip is handy when you’re working on a migration. I find that the process (for me) works like this:

    * Create the migration and run it.
    * Discover I forgot something.
    * Migrate down to the previous schema version.
    * Change the migration and run it again.

(Repeat as necessary.) However, being the imperfect programmer that I am, I find that I often implement the #down method incorrectly, forgetting to drop a table or remove a column. Thus, when I try to run the migration again, it fails saying that the table/column already exists.

Using script/console and ActiveRecord::Schema, it becomes a cinch to clean up the artifacts:

ActiveRecord::Schema.define do
    drop_table :foos
    remove_column :bars, :blitz
    remove_column :bars, :things
  end

Tags:
• Data
• migration
• Rails
• tip