How do I deploy specific objects from a Visual Studio database project?

Question

I have a Visual Studio 2010 database project and I'd like to do a partial deployment, i.e. of specified objects. Is this possible? The only options I can see are to either do a full deployment or stop after generating the script.

For example, I'm changing many tables and stored procs but not everything is 100% finished and I'd like to push out a specific stored procedure to my test database, including its permissions, etc.

I read a little bit about SQL Server Data Tools, which apparently supports this, but I'm not clear on whether I'd have to migrate my database project to use that instead (would also need the ok from team lead), or if it's simply a plugin that would allow extra functionality.

Answer 1

Check out Schema Comparisons. They allow you to select the objects you want to deploy. They are available without SQL Server Data Tools.

Answer 2

A "partial deployment" is actually a little dangerous. Consider that you will have just built your database project, your entire database project, complete with the table changes, and it has built with no errors or warnings (right?). Now you want to deploy just your stored procedure, into a database that does not have the table changes.

Your stored procedure got no errors or warnings in the context of all the changes. Are you sure it will get no errors or warnings without those changes?

You should consider a source control solution to this problem. Save a copy of your stored procedure, revert to a version of the code that matches the database you'll be deploying to, then make your stored procedure changes to that. When you deploy, you will be checking to see if the stored procedure makes sense in the context of the database you'll be deploying into.