what tools/procedures can be used for developping databases?

I am looking for documentation and best practices to develop a database and support it.

This tool and/or set of procedures should be able to:
* generate SQL statements to upgrade one version of a database _safely_
to another
* generate SQL statements to create an empty database (or containing
minimal configuration data) for a specific version
* prevent performing "database patches" in an incorrect order or
multiple execution of a specific patch
* determine quickly the version of a given database

Looking at how these things are done by various FLOSS projects didn't help me much as most of them appear to ignore these problems and simply provide SQL scripts that perform changes to the database structure without verifying if the database is in a valid state before or after.

Thanks in advance

Bram Received on Thu Nov 16 2006 - 20:26:14 CET