Run a single migration file

Assuming fairly recent version of Rails you can always run:

rake db:migrate:up VERSION=20090408054532

Where version is the timestamp in the filename of the migration.

Edit: At some point over the last 8 years (I'm not sure what version) Rails added checks that prevent this from running if it has already been run. This is indicated by an entry in the schema_migrations table. To re-run it, simply execute rake db:migrate:redo VERSION=20090408054532 instead.

You can just run the code directly out of the ruby file:

rails console
>> require "db/migrate/20090408054532_add_foos.rb"
>> AddFoos.new.up

Note: Very old versions of rails may require AddFoos.up rather than AddFoos.new.up.

An alternative way (without IRB) which relies on the fact that require returns an array of class names:

script/runner 'require("db/migrate/20090408054532_add_foos.rb").first.constantize.up'

Note that if you do this, it won't update the schema_migrations table, but it seems like that's what you want anyway.

Additionally, if it can't find the file you may need to use require("./db/..." or try require_relative depending on your working directory

If you want to run a specific migration, do

$ rake db:migrate:up VERSION=20080906120000

If you want to run migrations multiple times, do

# use the STEP parameter if you need to go more than one version back
$ rake db:migrate:redo STEP=3

If you want to run a single migration multiple times, do

# this is super useful
$ rake db:migrate:redo VERSION=20080906120000

(you can find the version number in the filename of your migration)

Edit: You can also simply rename your migration file, Eg:

20151013131830_my_migration.rb -> 20151013131831_my_migration.rb

Then migrate normally, this will treat the migration as a new one (usefull if you want to migrate on a remote environment (such as staging) on which you have less control.

Edit 2: You can also just nuke the migration entry in the database. Eg:

rails_c> q = "delete from schema_migrations where version = '20151013131830'"
rails_c> ActiveRecord::Base.connection.execute(q)

rake db:migrate will then rerun the up method of the nuked migrations.