DB Pro (data dude) and Wix3 SqlExtension

Question

I'm attempting to use Wix to create a database during install. I have my database setup with the Db Pro Visual Studio SKU (Data Dude as it's sometimes referred). However, the output seems to be only consumable by sqlcmd.exe since it uses specific syntax in it (variable references like :setenv and $(FOO)).

I'm trying to use the wix sqlextension which apparently isn't using sqlcmd.exe (I haven't investigated what data access technology it's using just yet.

Does anyone know if there is a way to use the output of data dude natively in the wix sqlextension or alternately if there is something that will take the sqlcmd output and translate it into the runtime sql needed to execute against the sql server?

Please note that the ultimate goal is to fully integrate wix into our build system so I am looking for an automated approach.

Answer 1

There is a blog post that covers calling the sqlcmd.exe utility from WiX 3 at http://neilsleightholm.blogspot.com/2008/08/executing-sqlcmd-from-wix.html

Answer 2

If you have created the package using Visual Studio DBPro it is best to use VSDBCMD.exe for the DB deployment. The benefits of this is that the VSDBCMD.exe always figures out the differential of the destination to the source and creates a delta script which can be run from the same command line. You just need to provide /action:Deploy.