Uses

The help goal is typically used to check the syntax of goals, their definitions, and attributes. The help goal displays all help information on liquibase-maven-plugin.

Maven configuration

You can configure Liquibase Maven in multiple ways. You can pass arguments like <changeLogFile> in Maven directly in your pom.xml file, in a liquibase.properties file referenced in your POM, as environment variables, or as JVM system properties. To learn about each file's syntax, see Maven Properties.

Tip: For more information about the Maven configuration, see Configuring Maven.

Running the help Maven goal

To run the goal, type the following in your command prompt:

mvn liquibase:help

To see attributes for each goal, add the -Ddetail=true attribute:

mvn liquibase:help -Ddetail=true

Note: If you want to see details only for one goal, add the -Dgoal=<goal name> attribute. For example: mvn liquibase:help -Ddetail=true -Dgoal=diff.

Maven help output

When successful, the help Maven goal produces the following output:

[INFO] Scanning for projects... [INFO] [INFO] -------------------< com.example:liquibase-project >-------------------- [INFO] Building liquibase-project 05XII19 [INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]--------------------------------- [INFO] --- liquibase-maven-plugin:4.1.1:help (default-cli) @ liquibase-project --- [INFO] liquibase-maven-plugin 4.1.1 A Maven plugin wraps up some of the functionality of Liquibase This plugin has 25 goals: liquibase:changelogSync Marks all unapplied changes to the database as applied in the change log. liquibase:changelogSyncSQL Generates SQL that marks all unapplied changes as applied. liquibase:clearCheckSums Clears all checksums in the current changelog, so they will be recalculated next update. liquibase:dbDoc Generates dbDocs against the database. liquibase:diff Generates a diff between the specified database and the reference database. The output is either a report or a changelog depending on the value of the diffChangeLogFile parameter. liquibase:dropAll Drops all database objects in the configured schema(s). Note that functions, procedures and packages are not dropped. liquibase:futureRollbackSQL Generates the SQL that is required to rollback the database to current state after the next update. liquibase:generateChangeLog Generates a changelog based on the current database schema. Typically used when beginning to use Liquibase on an existing project and database schema. liquibase:help Display help information on liquibase-maven-plugin. Call mvn liquibase:help -Ddetail=true -Dgoal=<goal-name> to display parameter details. liquibase:history Outputs history of deployments against the configured database. liquibase:listLocks Lists all Liquibase updater locks on the current database. liquibase:releaseLocks Removes any Liquibase updater locks from the current database. liquibase:rollback Invokes Liquibase to rollback the database (and mark changesets as unapplied). The change sets to be rolled back are specified using attributes 'rollbackCount', 'rollbackTag' and/or 'rollbackDate' liquibase:rollbackOneChangeSet Reverts (rolls back) one non-sequential changeSet made during a previous change to your database. It is only available for Liquibase Pro users. liquibase:rollbackOneChangeSetSQL Displays the SQL which will be executed when the corresponding rollbackOneChangeSet command is executed. This command does not perform the actual rollback. A Liquibase Pro license key is required. liquibase:rollbackOneUpdate Rolls back all changesets from any specific update, if all changesets can be rolled back. By default, the last update is rolled back, but an optional deployentId parameter can target any update. (Liquibase Pro only). liquibase:rollbackOneUpdateSQL Displays the SQL which will be executed when the corresponding rollbackOneUpdate command is executed. This command does not perform the actual rollback. A Liquibase Pro license key is required. liquibase:rollbackSQL Generates the SQL that is required to rollback the database using one or more of the specified attributes 'rollbackCount', 'rollbackTag' and/or 'rollbackDate' liquibase:status Prints which changesets need to be applied to the database. liquibase:tag Writes a Liquibase tag to the database. liquibase:update Applies the DatabaseChangeLogs to the database. Useful as part of the build process. liquibase:updateSQL Generates the SQL that is required to update the database to the current version as specified in the DatabaseChangeLogs. liquibase:updateTestingRollback Applies the DatabaseChangeLogs to the database, testing rollback. This is done by updating the database, rolling it back then updating it again.