Tracking DB changes with Zend Framework?

Question

I am trying to decide between the Zend Framework and Ruby On Rails for my web application.

If I go with ZF, I need the following:

• A way to incrementally track changes to my database, as with RoR's migration feature (001_something.sql, 002_something_else.sql).
• A place to put SQL for the next release of my software. At work in our custom PHP solution, we just have release.sql, which gets run, archived, and blanked out upon release.

ZF has Zend_Db_Schema_Manager, which does the same thing, but I'm not interested as its not official, complete, or maintained.

Is there an official mechanism that ZF provides for doing something similar to what I described?

EDIT I ended up going with Rails. Nothing compares.

Answer 1

You're not completely right about the status of Zend_Db_Schema_Manager. It seems from the development wiki that the Schema Manager is being worked on as we speak and that it can be expected to be part of the Framework in one of the upcoming versions.

It also seems that the guys are attempting to build something better than the RoR solution you are referring to. So maybe it's worthwile waiting for the ZF solution.

If you need more information you might want to ask the ZF devs directly on the respective mailinglist.

Answer 2

I use Zend Framework for our app in conjunction with the Doctrine ORM, which includes a migration tool that suits our needs just fine.

You should be able to use the migration tools without adopting the entire ORM framework. Also, before I found Doctrine, I had been evaluating php-migrations as well. But to be honest, I think Doctrine is a lot more mature.

As far as choosing a framework, I don't think any one single feature should sway you. Find something you're comfortable using, can be supported, and can do what you need it to when your requirements change.