Skip to content
Star Us On GitHub

Using Liquibase with Apache Derby

Apache Derby is an open-source relational database implemented entirely in Java and available under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

Supported database versions

  • 10.16.X
  • 10.15.X
  • 10.14.X

Prerequisites

  1. Introduction to Liquibase – Dive into Liquibase concepts.
  2. Install Liquibase – Download Liquibase on your machine.
  3. How to Apply Your Liquibase Pro License Key – If you use Liquibase Pro, activate your license.

Install drivers

To use Liquibase and Apache Derby, you need the JDBC driver JAR file (Maven link).

Place your JAR file(s) in the liquibase/lib directory.

If you use Maven, you must include the driver JAR as a dependency in your pom.xml file.

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.derby</groupId>
    <artifactId>derbytools</artifactId>
    <version>10.15.2.0</version>
</dependency>

Database connection

Configure connection

  1. Ensure your Apache Derby database is configured. As an option, you can run the sysinfo command to check the output of Derby system information. For more details, see the Install Software documentation.

  2. Specify the database URL in the liquibase.properties file (defaults file), along with other properties you want to set a default value for. Liquibase does not parse the URL. You can either specify the full database connection string or specify the URL using your database's standard JDBC format:

    url: jdbc:derby://localhost:1527/MYDATABASE;create=true

    Note

    If you created MYDATABASE, use create=false or remove create=true from URL.

  3. (optional) Enable Liquibase Pro capabilities

    To apply a Liquibase Pro key to your project, add the following property to the Liquibase properties file:

    liquibase.licenseKey: <paste key here>

Test connection

  1. Create a text file called changelog (.xml, .sql, .json, or .yaml) in your project directory and add a changeset.

    If you already created a changelog using the init project command, you can use that instead of creating a new file. When adding onto an existing changelog, be sure to only add the changeset and to not duplicate the changelog header.

    -- liquibase formatted sql

-- changeset my_name:1
CREATE TABLE test_table 
(
  test_id INT, 
  test_column INT, 
  PRIMARY KEY (test_id)
)

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<databaseChangeLog
  xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:ext="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog-ext"
  xmlns:pro="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog
    http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-latest.xsd
    http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog-ext http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-ext.xsd
    http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro/liquibase-pro-latest.xsd">

  <changeSet id="1" author="my_name">
    <createTable tableName="test_table">
      <column name="test_id" type="int">
        <constraints primaryKey="true"/>
      </column>
      <column name="test_column" type="INT"/>
    </createTable>
  </changeSet>

</databaseChangeLog>

    databaseChangeLog:
  - changeSet:
    id: 1
    author: my_name
    changes:
    - createTable:
      tableName: test_table
      columns:
      - column:
        name: test_column
          type: INT
          constraints:
            primaryKey:  true
            nullable:  false

    {
  "databaseChangeLog": [
    {
      "changeSet": {
        "id": "1",
        "author": "my_name",
        "changes": [
          {
            "createTable": {
              "tableName": "test_table",
              "columns": [
                {
                  "column": {
                    "name": "test_column",
                    "type": "INT",
                    "constraints": {
                      "primaryKey": true,
                      "nullable": false
                    }
                  }
                }
              ]
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

  2. Navigate to your project folder in the CLI and run the Liquibase status command to see whether the connection is successful:

    liquibase status --username=test --password=test --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

    Note

    You can specify arguments in the CLI or keep them in the Liquibase properties file.

    If your connection is successful, you'll see a message like this:

    1 changeset has not been applied to <your_jdbc_url>
Liquibase command 'status' was executed successfully.

  3. Inspect the SQL with the update-sql command. Then make changes to your database with the update command.

    liquibase update-sql --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>
liquibase update --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

    If your update is successful, Liquibase runs each changeset and displays a summary message ending with:

    Liquibase: Update has been successful.
Liquibase command 'update' was executed successfully.

  4. From a database UI tool, ensure that your database contains the test_table you added along with the DATABASECHANGELOG table and DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK table.

Now you're ready to start making deployments with Liquibase!

Troubleshooting issues on macOS

If your Derby Server is not running or you are not using the embedded driver, use the following commands on the Mac to start the Derby Server:

  1. Set the DERBY_HOME environment variable

    export DERBY_HOME=<location_of the unzipped directory_for_derby>

    Example

    export DERBY_HOME=/Users/myname/Downloads/db-derby-10.15.2.0-bin

  2. Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable

    export JAVA_HOME=<path_to_your_JRE>

    Note

    Use the actual installed location of the JRE in place of <path_to_your_JRE> since Apache Derby will expect a bin directory as a subfolder.

    Example

    export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-14.jdk/Contents/Home

  3. Run the Derby Server

    java -jar $DERBY_HOME/lib/derbynet.jar start -h 0.0.0.0