Command line basics
Published 13 December 2022
This page provides information on the following aspects of the SQL Compare command line:
- Getting help
- Entering a command
- Aliases
- The /Options switch
- Verbose and quiet switches
- Redirecting command line output
For details and examples of all of the switches that are available for the SQL Compare command line, see Switches used in the command line
Getting help
To display a brief description of SQL Compare, and basic help on all the command line switches, enter:
sqlcompare /help
For more detailed help enter:
sqlcompare /help /verbose
This displays a detailed description of each switch and the values it can accept (where applicable), and all exit codes. To output the help in HTML format, enter:
sqlcompare /help /verbose /html
Entering a command
When you enter a command, the order of switches is unimportant.
We recommend you follow the Microsoft convention of separating a switch from its values using a colon as shown below.
/Out:Output.txt
Values that include spaces must be delimited by double quotation marks ( " ). For example:
/Out:"c:\Output_File.txt"
If you delimit a path with double quotation marks, don't terminate the path with the backslash character ( \ ), because the backslash will be interpreted as an escape character. For example:
/Location:"C:\Packages\"
Correct:
/Location:"C:\Packages"
For switches that accept multiple values, use commas to separate the values. For example:
/options:IncludeDependencies,ForceColumnOrder
For switches that accept a compound value, separate each part of the value using a colon.
For example, the /include and /exclude switches are used to include and exclude objects from the comparison and deployment:
/Include:table:Product
This includes all tables for which the table name contains the word Product.
Aliases
Many of the switches have an alias. The alias provides a convenient short-hand way to specify the switch. For example, /? is the alias for the /help switch, and /v is the alias for the /verbose switch.
Switches and aliases are not case sensitive.
The /Options switch
You can use the /Options switch to change your options. For example, comparisons are not case-sensitive by default; to specify case sensitive comparisons you would use the /Options switch:
/Options:CaseSensitiveObjectDefinition
For more information about options, and a list of default option settings, see: Options used in the command line.
Verbose and quiet switches
The standard output mode prints basic information about what the tool is doing while it is executing. You can specify verbose and quiet modes using the /verbose and /quiet switches, respectively. In verbose mode, detailed output is printed; in quiet mode, output is printed only if an error occurs.
Redirecting command line output
The command line output can be redirect using either the /Out switch, or the output redirection features provided by the shell in which you are executing the command.
Using /Out
You can use the /out switch to specify the file to which you want output directed:
sqlcompare ... /Out:OutputLog.txt
where OutputLog.txt is the name of the file. If the file exists already, you must also use the /Force switch to force the tool to overwrite the file, otherwise an error will occur.
Other redirection
From the standard command prompt provided by Windows, you can redirect output to a file as follows:
sqlcompare ... > OutputLog.txt
If the specified file exists already, it will be overwritten. To append output from the tool to an existing file, enter the following:
sqlcompare... >> existinglog.txt
This adds the output to the existing file content, without data being lost.
If you are scripting using a language such as VBScript, JScript, PHP, Perl, or Python, or if you want to access the tool from Web pages using ASP.NET, refer to the documentation for the language.
Specify command line arguments in an XML file that can be referenced using the /Argfile switch. For more on this topic see: Using XML to specify command line arguments.
