Tool for Organizing Your Schemas (TOYS) is a useful Microsoft Windows utility that helps you compare and synchronize Oracle database schemas.

The tool facilitates taking snapshots of the database structure (meta-data) and saving these snapshots as XML files. Snapshots can be compared to determine what has changed over time.

The tool facilitates synhronizing database structures with snapshots or other live databases.

The tool also supports the creation of HTML schema reports and the generation of DDL scripts to re-create your schemas. Snapshots may be saved as standard text files (as XML) in source code management tools. Supports Oracle 7, 8, 8i, 9i and 10g.

Functions

Meta-data Capture
TOYS enables you to extract schema definitions [meta-data] out of your existing database.

Meta-data Archiving
TOYS lets you save these extracted schema definitions [called "snapshots"] as XML files. Snapshots files can be quickly loaded for comparison, reporting or DDL generation.

Reporting
Snapshots can be used to generate various forms of schema reports, customisable by using XSLT stylesheets. Default stylesheets are provided for generating regular HTML schema reports and for generating Microsoft� HTML Help files.

DDL Generation
Snapshots can also be used to generate DDL scripts. These DDL scripts allow you to clone or re-create your schemas.

Schema Comparison
Using TOYS you can compare the schemas in any of your databases with their counterparts in your other databases. Alternatively you can compare your databases with any "snapshots" you have saved previously. You can even compare saved "snapshots" with each other.

Publishing Schema Differences
You can save the results of schema comparisons as XML. A XSLT stylesheet is provided that enables you to publish your schema differences as a HTML "tree view" report.

Schema Synchronizing
TOYS can generate DDL synchronization scripts to upgrade your working database to agree with your reference database. These scripts alter the schema structures as necessary and preserve existing data.

Synchronized Copying
TOYS enables you to create a "synchronized" copy of your database. This means that you can keep the original database and make a copy of it as an archive that is "synchronized" with the reference database. This is an archive of the original database altered to the new structure. This archive can be loaded into an Oracle database to construct an "updated" copy of the original.

Here are some key features of "Tool for Organizing Your Schemas (TOYS)":

· Easy to use GUI

· Non intrusive. That is, no special setup is required within the accessed databases. TOYS does not install objects into the database when capturing schema information. This is most important if you have lots of databases.

· Simple setup. TOYS installs in seconds. It does not require ODBC or the setup and maintenance of database repositories. TOYS only requires that the Oracle� net client be installed. See Installing TOYS for details of installing and running TOYS.

· Fast operation. Comparisons only take seconds. Similarly, snapshots are loaded (or saved) in seconds. This can save a significant amount of time when comparing a large number of databases. Retrieval of schema meta-data from the Oracle catalogs (snapshot capture) has been optimized to further speed the process.

· Support for Oracle 7, 8, 8i, 9i and 10g.

· Supports multi-schema operation. Multiple related schemas within a database can be captured, compared and synchronized as a unit. TOYS is not limited to single schema comparisons and upgrades.

· Operability with source code management tools. Snapshots are saved by TOYS as XML and can be stored as text in any source code management system.

Requirements:

· Pentium III/500 MHz or better recommended
· 256 MB of physical memory
· 512 MB of virtual memory
· 10 MB disk space
· Oracle net client
· Microsoft HTML Help support
· An up to date internet browser

Limitations:

· Support for renamed objects disabled
· Command line operation disabled
· Generation of DDL scripts to synchronize schemas disabled
· Places restrictions on browsing and reporting of differences for large databases. When the number of objects in your database exceed certain limits TOYS will not allow you to view details of an object's differences or to create a difference report. This restriction does not prevent you seeing which objects are different but it prevents you from seeing the details of those objects which are different. Restrictions are not applied providing your working database snapshot contains a single schema that has no more than 50 of the following object types: tables, views, types, packages, procedures.

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Minor fixes