Chapter 4. Transfer Tool

Transfer Tool is a GUI program for transferring SQL schema and data from one JDBC source to another. Source and destination can be different database engines or different databases on the same server.

Transfer Tool works in two different modes. Direct transfer maintains a connection to both source and destination and performs the transfer. Dump and Restore mode is invoked once to transfer the data from the source to a text file (Dump), then again to transfer the data from the text file to the destination (Restore). With Dump and Restore, it is possible to make any changes to database object definitions and data prior to restoring it to the target.

Dump and Restore modes can be set via the command line with -d (--dump) or -r (--restore) options. Alternatively the Transfer Tool can be started with any of the three modes from the Database Manager's Tools menu.

The connection dialogue allows you to save the settings for the connection you are about to make. You can then access the connection in future sessions. These settings are shared with those from the Database Manager tool. See the appendix on Database Manager for details of the connection dialogue box.

From version 1.8.0 Transfer Tool is no longer part of the hsqldb.jar. You can build the hsqldbutil.jar using the Ant command of the same name, to build a jar that includes Transfer Tool and the Database Manager.

When collecting meta-data, Transfer Tool performs SELECT * FROM <table> queries on all the tables in the source database. This may take a long time with some database engines. When the source database is HSQLDB, this means memory should be available for the result sets returned from the queries. Therefore, the memory allocation of the java process in which Transfer Tool is executed may have to be high.

The current version of Transfer is far from ideal, as it has not been actively developed for several years. The program also lacks the ability to create UNIQUE constraints and creates UNIQUE indexes instead. However, some bugs have been fixed in the latest version and the program can be used with most of the supported databases. The best way to use the program is the DUMP and RESTORE modes, which allow you to manually change the SQL statements in the dump file before restoring to a database. A useful idea is to dump and restore the database definition separately from the database data.