SeedMigrations is an extension for Ruby on Rails to make seeding behave like migrating.
Seeds are stored in db/seed and follow the naming convention of migrations (e.g. db/seed/20110630710959_add_bananas.rb).
All seeds are meant to be loaded once.
The default behaviour of the rake task db:seed is to load the db/seed.rb file every time you invoke it. The rake task is just extended with additional behaviour, so the default behaviour still works.
Just add the gem to your Gemfile and:
$ bundle install
Create a seed
To create a seed use the seed generator (rails g seed_migration ) and write your code in its method named 'up'.
Load new seeds
To load new seeds use the rake task db:seed.
A seed will be performed if there is no entry in the database table named seed_migrations with the name of the seed (without ending).
After successful performance an entry is created.
Seeds are executed within a transaction (so if an exception occurs, the changes made by the seed are rolled back).
Caution: The default behaviour of the rake task still works. The file db/seeds.rb is loaded whenever you invoke it. Think about what fits you most (probably leave the file empty).
Migrating from old behaviour
If you used the default seeding behaviour but want your code to be executed just once, move it to an initial seed and keep db/seed.rb empty.
Reload the last seed
To reload the last successfully performed seed use the rake task db:seed:last. This seed will be performed even if it was performed before.
This project rocks and uses MIT-LICENSE.