Best approach to working with multiple developers and databases

Question

I've been working on a project for a couple of months now with a few other developers and it has got to the point where we all have different changes to the DB we are working with, but all of the changes are local, meaning the server is out of sync with all of our local changes.

What is the best way to handle this? At the moment I tried to basically export my database from my local PC with phpMyAdmin and import that .sql file into the database on the server but as some of the tables already exist on the server it just gives out an error...

Would I have broken my database on the server by trying to import that sql file?

What do I do?

Answer 1

Ok so here's what I would do in your position...

Use this tool: http://www.clevercomponents.com/downloads/dbc/dbcdownload.asp

With the database compare tool, it should identify the differences in structure between two databases. This generates an SQL file which will alter the target (your server) database to match the master (your local).

Always backup your target database before attempting something like this, just in case it goes wrong.