sq diff roadmap and feedback

[neilotoole]

sq diff is a significant new feature. It's currently in beta release. It will probably go through a few iterations before it's finished.

Here are some thoughts on roadmap:

Stop-after

Currently sq diff --data scans every row in a table, which obviously can get a bit expensive. Many times we only want to know if there's even a single difference, so sq diff could stop after finding that first difference, or after N differences.

$ sq diff @sakila/staging.actor @sakila/prod.actor --stop 1

SQL/DDL output format for --schema

Currently, sq diff --schema always outputs in YAML. It might be useful to be able to diff the SQL DDL, where the DDL might look like:

create table public.actor
(
    actor_id    integer   default not null primary key,
    first_name  varchar(45) not null,
    last_name   varchar(45) not null,
    last_update timestamp default now() not null                                   
);

The command might look like sq diff --schema --format ddl.

Be more like sqldiff

SQLite has a sqldiff utility that has some nifty functionality that it might be possible to integrate into sq. For example, sqldiff can generate a changeset as a set of UPDATE/INSERT commands, which can then be applied using the sqlite CLI.