future-rollback-sql
Last published July 28, 2025
The future-rollback-sql command is a helper command that produces the raw SQL Liquibase would need to roll back changes that have not yet been deployed to your database.
Uses
You can use the future-rollback-sql command to inspect the raw SQL Liquibase would use to revert changes associated with undeployed changesets.
It is best practice to inspect SQL Liquibase would run when using the update command so you can review any changes the command would make to your database.
Note: The update-sql command is a helper command that you can also use before running the update command. The main difference is that update-sql creates objects associated with undeployed changesets, and future-rollback-sql drops objects associated with undeployed changesets.
Syntax
To run the future-rollback-sql command, specify the driver, classpath, and URL in the Liquibase properties file. You can also specify these properties in your command line.
Then run the future-rollback-sql command:
liquibase --output-file=example-file.txt future-rollback-sql --changelog-file=example-changelog.xml
* Liquibase checks the changelog and any nested changelogs for the definitions of the changesets to roll back.
Note: The username and password attributes are not required for connections and systems that use alternate means of authentication. Also, you can specify database credentials as part of the url attribute.
Parameters
Global parameters
Attribute | Definition | Requirement |
| File path to where the command output will be written. If not specified, output goes to | Optional |
Command parameters
Attribute | Definition | Requirement |
| The root changelog | Required |
| The JDBC database connection URL. | Required |
| Specifies the changeset contexts to match. Contexts are tags you can add to changesets to control which changesets are executed in any particular migration run. Note: If you use Liquibase 4.23.0 or earlier, use the syntax | Optional |
| Name of the default catalog to use for the database connection | Optional |
| Name of the default schema to use for the database connection. If Note: In the properties file and Note: In Liquibase 4.12.0 and later, you can use mixed-case schema names if you set | Optional |
| The JDBC driver class | Optional |
| The JDBC driver properties file | Optional |
| Specifies the changeset labels to match. Labels are tags you can add to changesets to control which changesets will be executed in any migration run. | Optional |
| Control whether names of objects in the default catalog are fully qualified or not. If | Optional |
| Control whether names of objects in the default schema are fully qualified or not. If | Optional |
| Password to connect to the target database. Tip: It is best practice to store sensitive data in a Secrets Management tool with Liquibase Pro. | Optional |
| Username to connect to the target database. Tip: It is best practice to store sensitive data in a Secrets Management tool with Liquibase Pro. | Optional |
Output
When successful, the future-rollback-sql command produces the following output:
-- *********************************************************************
-- SQL to roll back currently unexecuted changes
-- *********************************************************************
-- Change Log: example-changelog.sql
-- Ran at: 5/12/22, 10:34 AM
-- Against: DBUSER@jdbc:h2:tcp://localhost:9090/mem:dev
-- Liquibase version: 4.9.1
-- *********************************************************************
-- Lock Database
UPDATE PUBLIC.DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK SET LOCKED = TRUE, LOCKEDBY = 'DESKTOP-SQVSSV2 (192.168.1.179)', LOCKGRANTED = NOW() WHERE ID = 1 AND LOCKED = FALSE;
-- Release Database Lock
UPDATE PUBLIC.DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK SET LOCKED = FALSE, LOCKEDBY = NULL, LOCKGRANTED = NULL WHERE ID = 1;