Databse Migrations using Rake without Rails

Database migrations can be a pain, it is for me anyway when I have to fire up an SQL window and execute commands (I'm lazy). Having used Ruby on Rails for a previous project I came across the command 'rake db:migrate' and loved how the creating of tables, columns and altering of those were reduced to Ruby code which is much easier to read and execute. I wanted to find a way to use that command on a project that wasn't using Rails. I found an excellent post on the subject, but I tweaked it slightly.

Using custom rake tasks in your Rails build

With Rails you can create custom Rake tasks (I recommend reading RailsEnvy for a tutorial for rake tasks).

Once you've got your task you can use it in your Rails build by adding the following line to your Rakefile in the Rails base directory:

Rake::Task['namespace:your_rake_task'].invoke

Easy enough, but took me long enough to find it! Now when you run 'rake' in your rails projects, your custom tasks will be executed. Cool eh? Good for copying dependences and such.