How to enable auto migration in Go?

Faisal AL Mahmud
2 min readOct 28, 2021

This article is to enable auto migration in GoLang with integration with GORM in up-down approach.

Create migration CLI

To enable auto migration in Go with GORM install golang-migrate.

  • Run following commands:
$ go get -u -d github.com/golang-migrate/migrate/cmd/migrate
$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/golang-migrate/migrate/cmd/migrate
$ git checkout $TAG # e.g. v4.8.0
$ go build -tags 'postgres' -ldflags="-X main.Version=$(git describe --tags)
  • Navigate to your migrate project and find out migrate.exe file.
  • Copy migrate.exe and paste it into $GOPATH/bin folder.
  • Your migration CLI is ready to use. N.B: [find out the latest version of migrate cmd and replace it]
  • Read more about CLI.

Run your first migration.

i.e: migrate create -ext sql -dir db/migrations -digits 7 create_users_table

  • migrate command will create a db/migrations folder with to sql ( up/down) file.
  • Edit up file. for example-
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS users(
user_id serial PRIMARY KEY,
username VARCHAR (50) UNIQUE NOT NULL,
password VARCHAR (50) NOT NULL,
email VARCHAR (300) UNIQUE NOT NULL
);
  • Edit down file. for example-
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS users;
  • Now let’s install golang-migrate.
$ go get github.com/golang-migrate/migrate
  • Configure migration with GORM.

If you prefer a command-line tool over configured code then it’s for you!

  • Remove GORM configuration. (If any)
db, err := gorm.Open("postgres", config.ConnectionString)
// driver, err := postgres.WithInstance(db.DB(), &postgres.Config{})
// m, err := migrate.NewWithDatabaseInstance(
// "file://db/migrations",
// "postgres", driver)
// m.Steps(2)
  • Run migration script. i.e:
migrate -source file://{migration file path} -database postgres://{user name}:{password}@{db location}/{db name}?sslmode=disable up
  • For example:
migrate -source file://db/migrations -database postgres://postgres:648782@localhost:5432/zachai_auction?sslmode=disable up
  • Use down for dropping
  1. Happy Coding…😍😍😍

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Faisal AL Mahmud

Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.