When to Use Flyway<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
We should use Flyway when:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- We need to manage complex database schemas that are frequently updated.<\/li>
- Our team collaborates on a project, and we need to ensure everyone is using the same database version.<\/li>
- We want to automate the deployment of database changes as part of a continuous integration\/continuous deployment (CI\/CD) pipeline.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
How to Use Flyway in a Spring Boot Project<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Maven Configuration<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
To integrate Flyway into a Spring Boot project using Maven, we need to add the Flyway Maven plugin to our
pom.xml<\/code> file:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<project>\n ...\n <build>\n <plugins>\n <plugin>\n <groupId>org.flywaydb<\/groupId>\n <artifactId>flyway-maven-plugin<\/artifactId>\n <version>11.2.0<\/version>\n <\/plugin>\n <\/plugins>\n <\/build>\n<\/project><\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n- groupId<\/strong> and artifactId<\/strong>: Identify the Flyway Maven plugin.<\/li>
- version<\/strong>: Specifies the version of Flyway to use.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nSpring Boot Configuration<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Spring Boot automatically integrates with Flyway if it’s on the classpath. For doing that, we could\/should configure it in the
application.properties<\/code> file:<\/p>\n\n\n\nspring.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql:\/\/localhost:3306\/mydb\nspring.datasource.username=myuser\nspring.datasource.password=mypassword\nspring.flyway.enabled=true<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n- spring.datasource.url<\/strong>: Specifies the database connection URL.<\/li>
- spring.datasource.username<\/strong> and password<\/strong>: Database credentials.<\/li>
- spring.flyway.enabled<\/strong>: Enables Flyway for the application.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nCreating Migration Scripts<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Migration scripts should be placed in the
src\/main\/resources\/db\/migration<\/em><\/strong><\/code> directory. Each script should be named according to the Flyway naming convention, such asV1__Initial_setup.sql<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nExample of a migration script (
V1__Initial_setup.sql<\/code>):<\/p>\n\n\n\nCREATE TABLE example_table (\n id INT PRIMARY KEY,\n name VARCHAR(100)\n);<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n- V1__Initial_setup.sql<\/strong>: The file name indicates it is the first version of the migration.<\/li>
- CREATE TABLE<\/strong>: SQL statement to create a new table.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nRunning Migrations<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
To apply migrations, let us run the Flyway Maven plugin:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
mvn flyway:migrate<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n- mvn flyway:migrate<\/strong>: Executes all pending migrations against the database.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nExample Project Structure<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nReal Case Example with Flyway<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Let’s consider a scenario where we need to manage versioning for a database schema in a Spring Boot application using Flyway. We will also explore how to perform a rollback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adding Versioned Migrations<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Let us create a directory
src\/main\/resources\/db\/migration<\/code> and add migration scripts. Each script should be prefixed with a version number.<\/p>\n\n\n\nVersion 1: Initial Setup<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Create
V1__Initial_setup.sql<\/code>:<\/p>\n\n\n\nCREATE TABLE employee (\n id INT PRIMARY KEY,\n name VARCHAR(100),\n department VARCHAR(50)\n);<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nVersion 2: Add Column<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Create
V2__Add_email_to_employee.sql<\/code>:<\/p>\n\n\n\nALTER TABLE employee ADD email VARCHAR(100);<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nApplying Migration<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
mvn flyway:migrate<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nThis command will apply all pending migrations to the database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rollback Strategy<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Flyway does not support automatic rollbacks. However, we can manually create a rollback script.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rollback Version 2<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Create
U2__Remove_email_from_employee.sql<\/code>:<\/p>\n\n\n\nALTER TABLE employee DROP COLUMN email;<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nthis script removes the
email<\/code> column from theemployee<\/code> table. This action effectively reverses the change made in the migration that added theemail<\/code> column.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTo rollback, we could manually run the rollback script using the database client or create a custom Maven command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Example Rollback Execution<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
To simulate a rollback, we can manually execute the rollback script:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
mvn flyway:migrate -Dflyway.sqlMigrationPrefix=U<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nThis command will apply rollback scripts prefixed with
U<\/code>. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe prefix
U<\/code><\/strong> in the Flyway migration command is used to specify rollback scripts. In Flyway, migration scripts typically have a prefix likeV<\/code> for versioned migrations. By using the prefixU<\/code>, we indicate that these scripts are meant to undo or rollback changes made by correspondingV<\/strong><\/code> scripts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PS:<\/strong> It is not obligatory to use the prefix
U<\/code> for undo scripts in Flyway. The prefix is configurable, and we can choose any prefix that suits our naming convention. The default prefix for versioned migrations isV<\/code>, but for undo scripts, we can define a different prefix (likeU<\/code>) using theflyway.sqlMigrationPrefix<\/code> property when executing the command. This allows flexibility in organizing and identifying our scripts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Flyway is a powerful tool for managing database migrations in Spring Boot applications. By integrating Flyway, we can ensure that our database schema is versioned, consistent, and easily manageable across different environments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Flyway is an open-source database migration tool that helps manage and automate the process of applying changes to a database schema. It provides a structured way to track, version, and execute database migrations, ensuring that any changes applied to the database are consistent across different environments. Flyway is not specific to Spring Boot. It can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1006,1007],"tags":[1003,1000,999,1005,1002,1004,1001],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3772"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3772"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3777,"href":"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3772\/revisions\/3777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nguenkam.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- CREATE TABLE<\/strong>: SQL statement to create a new table.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
- spring.datasource.username<\/strong> and password<\/strong>: Database credentials.<\/li>
- version<\/strong>: Specifies the version of Flyway to use.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
- groupId<\/strong> and artifactId<\/strong>: Identify the Flyway Maven plugin.<\/li>