validate

The validate command checks your changelog and identifies any possible errors that may cause the update command to fail.

Uses

Use the validate command to detect if there are any issues with a changelog before running the update command. Validation helps you avoid a partial update, where only some changesets are applied due to an error in your changelog file.

Use the validate command to ensure:

  • The XML, YAML, JSON, or formatted SQL is structured correctly
  • Referenced files can be found
  • Any attributes you specify in your changelog match the XSD
  • There are no duplicated id, author, and file combinations
  • There are no checksum errors
  • The DATABASECHANGELOG and DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK tables exist (if not, it creates them)

Note: The validate command only looks for possible errors in the changelog. It does not check for possible errors that might result from applying the changes to a specific database.

Syntax

To run the validate command, specify the driver, classpath, and URL in the Liquibase properties file. For more information, see Create and Configure a liquibase.properties File. You can also specify these properties in your command line.

Then run the validate command:

liquibase validate --changelog-file=example-changelog.xml

Command arguments

Tip: For best results, specify all commands and parameters in the --kebab-case format in the CLI. If your preference is camelCase, it also works in the CLI.

Attribute Definition Requirement
--changelog-file *

The root changelog

Required
--url

The JDBC database connection URL. See Using JDBC URL in Liquibase.

Required
--default-catalog-name

Name of the default catalog to use for the database connection

Optional
--default-schema-name

Name of the default schema to use for the database connection. If defaultSchemaName is set, then objects do not have to be fully qualified. This means you can refer to just mytable instead of myschema.mytable.

Tip: In Liquibase v4.23.0+, camelCase for defaultSchemaName works successfully. If you are on an earlier version, camelCase may not work as expected.

Note: The syntax liquibase.command.defaultSchemaName is valid for v4.19.0+. For prior versions, use defaultSchemaName.

Optional
--driver

The JDBC driver class

Optional
--driver-properties-file

The JDBC driver properties file

Optional
--password

Password to connect to the target database.

Tip: It is a best practice to store sensitive data in a Secrets Management tool with Liquibase Pro.

Optional
--username

Username to connect to the target database.

Tip: It is a best practice to store sensitive data in a Secrets Management tool with Liquibase Pro.

Optional

* Liquibase will check nested changelogs for definitions of the changesets to validate.

Note: The username and password attributes are not required for connections and systems which use alternate means of authentication. Also, you can specify database credentials as part of the url attribute.

Output

Liquibase Version: 4.9.1
Liquibase Community 4.9.1 by Liquibase
No validation errors found.
Liquibase command 'validate' was executed successfully.

Related links