If database changes are extensive, you might choose to distribute brand new versions of your application and the database.
To distribute the precompiled version of an upgraded database:
1. Build a new basic database.
2. Recompile all your procedures, including those not directly affected by the schema change, so that r-code file time-stamps match the database file time-stamps.
3. Distribute the new basic database and the recompiled procedures to users.
Your users will have to dump their data from the old database and load it into the new database. Therefore, you must also provide your users with a dump/reload facility.
4. If you are changing any of the file formats used in your application, you must modify the set of load files to work with those new formats.
5. Run the mkdump script against the new version of the database.
6. Supply a modified set of file load procedures so the user can reload the database using procedures that are compatible with the old data format. These procedures will probably be different from the file load procedures the user will use to reload the new database after dumping it.
7. Supply new file dump, file load, and subdirectory procedures so the user can later dump and reload the database, if necessary.
