This section provides a reference sheet for all the commands provided by the data generator CLI tool.

Exit codes

The data generator CLI will return the following exit codes when running commands.

Anything other than SUCCESS (0) will indicate a negative outcome.

Exit code	Designation	Outcome status	When
0	Success	`OK`	Used when a `data generator` command completed successfully.
1	GenericFailure	FAILURE	Catch all for general errors that don't have special meaning.
2	UnhandledException	FAILURE	Used when no other error code is suitable. It's the default error code.
3	FailedInitialization	FAILURE	Used when failing initialization of services and tools.
4	CliInvokedIncorrectly	FAILURE	Used when provided with missing or mismatched command line parameters.
5	InvalidConfiguration	FAILURE	Used when the provided configuration does not meet the data generation requirements.
6	FailedTableExtraction	FAILURE	Used when the SQL tables to generate into could not be retrieved from the targetdatabase.
7	InsufficientRowsInserted	FAILURE	Used when the data generator couldn't generate as many rows as were requested, due to constraints in the target database.
8	NoRowsInserted	FAILURE	Used when the `data generator` couldn't generate any valid rows, due to constraints in the target database.

Please check our Data generation troubleshooting section for some known error use cases (and workarounds).

CLI logging

In terms of observability, the data generator CLI has two main types of logging:

Logging type Location Default Minimum Log Level Purpose

File

Default location varies per OS:

Windows : C:\ProgramData\Red Gate\Logs\TDM\DataGenerator
Linux/Mac OSX (central location) : /var/log/Red Gate/Logs/TDM/DataGenerator
Linux/Mac OSX (local location) : ./Logs

The default log folder can be overridden in the command line by using the CLI parameter --log-folder to point to a locally accessible location.

DEBUG

Log client-side application-level information about data generation execution and outcome. This will include, by default, additional contextual debug execution information.

Minimum log level when running commands can be changed with the global --file-log-level parameter (see global flags and parameters).

Console (standard out)

stdout

INFORMATION

Displays non-error client-side application-level information about data generation execution and outcome. This excludes Error and Fatal log events which will be added to the standard error stream instead.

Minimum log level when running commands can be changed with the global --console-log-level parameter (see global flags and parameters).

Console (standard error)

stderror

ERROR (cannot be changed)

Displays all Error and above client-side application-level messages for issues during execution of the data generator. This will lead to a non-successful exit code.

Log format

The filename of our log file will use following date sortable format: DataGenerator-YYYYMMDD.json (e.g. DataGenerator-20230503.json).

The files are written in Compact Log Event Format, a JSON-based format. This means each log message has structured data associated with it. The open source Compact Log Viewer tool is a convenient way to view the logs.

(there are other tools for working with Compact Log Event Format files: see the list on the CLEF webpage).

Log file sizes are limited to 20 MB and daily file rotation is implemented in the data generator.

There is no automatic purging of old log files built-in yet, so you may want to keep an eye on log files and delete older files from time to time.

Global flags and parameters

While every command has a set of dedicated key value parameters and flags that drive its behavior, data generator also has a set of global flags and parameters that can be applied to all commands (or subset of commands).

Flag/Parameter	Description	Example
--version	Show version information	`data generator --version`
-?, -h, --help	Show help and usage information	`data generator --help`
--console-log-level <Debug\|Error\|Fatal\|Information\|None\|Verbose\|Warning>	Minimum log level for the terminal's standard output and error. [default: Information] When running on Docker it could be useful to increase the console log level so that debug messages go to the console.	`data generator --console-log-level=Warning`
--file-log-level <Debug\|Error\|Fatal\|Information\|None\|Verbose\|Warning>	Minimum log level for the data generator's log file. [default: Debug]	`data generator --file-log-level=Information`
--log-folder <log-folder>	Optional directory path to use when storing log files. If not specified, the default location varies per host Operating System (OS) running the tool.	`data generator --log-folder=C:\Users\***\Documents`

Running the CLI

Follow the data generation installation guide.
Just call the data generator CLI with either command line parameters

Commands

Running the data generator

NOTE: At present, during the MVP, we don't have separate commands in the tool. This is likely to be expanded in the future.

This is the sole entry point into our data generator at the moment (see note above).

Please check the installation requirements and known limitations listed in our troubleshooting guide.

Via the command line parameters

The following parameters configure the data generator:

Flag/Parameter	Description	Mandatory
--database-engine <MySql\|Oracle\|PostgreSql\|SqlServer>	The type of the database. The data generator currently supports 4 database engines: MySql, Oracle, PostgreSql and SqlServer. Must be present.	YES
--target-connection-string <target-connection-string>	Connection string for the target database. Must be present if not in the environment variable REDGATE_DATAGENERATOR_TARGET_CONNECTION_STRING (takes precedence). See also the requirements for the target database on the installation requirements page.	YES
--target-database-write-mode <Overwrite\|Strict>	Execution mode for the data generator. Supported values are Strict and Overwrite. In Strict mode the data generator will return an error if any tables in the target database contain rows. In Overwrite mode the data generator will truncate any tables that contain rows. If omitted it defaults to Strict. Overwrite mode should be used with care and only when running the tool manually, as it can lead to data loss if pointed at the wrong target database.	`NO`
--rows-to-generate <rows-to-generate>	The number of rows to generate for each table in the target database. If omitted it defaults to 1000.	`NO`

For example:

# Using Windows authentication against local SQL Server database
.\DataGenerator
--database-engine=sqlserver
--target-connection-string="server=SomeSqlServer;database=SomeTargetDatabase;trusted_connection=yes;TrustServerCertificate=true"
--rows-to-generate 1000

# Using Sql authentication against local SQL Server database
.\DataGenerator
--database-engine=sqlserver
--target-connection-string="server=SomeSqlServer;database=SomeTargetDatabase;Uid=sa;Pwd=123;TrustServerCertificate=true"
--rows-to-generate 1000

 # Using a PostgreSQL local database using SQL authentication
.\DataGenerator
--database-engine=postgresql
--target-connection-string="Server=127.0.0.1;Port=5432;Database=SomeTargetDatabase;User Id=SomeUser;Password=SomePassword;"
--rows-to-generate 1000

This is not an exhaustive list of the command line possibilities. Please run DataGenerator--help to discover some of our optional configuration parameters.

Redgate Test Data Manager

Data Generation command-line reference

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