Grails comes with HSQLDB as it’s in-memory db and it’s not difficult to inspect it, but there’s a simpler way than many realise and it’s built into every Grails installation, bundled in the HSQLDB jar lib.
I have found this trick is useful when inspecting DB state during integration test execution.
Just add the following line of code to somewhere in your application.
org.hsqldb.util.DatabaseManager.main()
When that line gets triggered from a running grails app you will see the prompt window above appear on your desktop.
All you need to then do is tweak the DB url (remove the . and replace with DB name) to reflect your datasource properties for the in-memory DB, in my case
jdbc:hsqldb:mem:devDB
That’s it! You should then see the Database schema browser below.
One important caveat – this DB tool issues a System.exit() which terminates your Grails app when you close so be sure to remove that line when you have done inspecting!
