Scriptella

Scriptella is an open-source, Java-based ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) tool for moving and transforming data between databases, files, and other systems. Use SQL or another language suited to each data source, while a small XML file orchestrates the workflow instead of a proprietary transformation language.

The latest release is Scriptella 1.3 (Java 8 target and preserved Maven/Ant packaging), published on July 17, 2026.

Scriptella 1.3 is available from GitHub Releases and Maven Central.

The master branch is the development line for Scriptella 1.4. See What's coming in the next version for its current status, compatibility changes, and planned modernization work.

Download a published release from GitHub Releases or https://scriptella.org/download.html.

The binary ZIP includes scriptella.jar. Run an ETL file:

java -jar scriptella.jar path/to/file.etl.xml

Add JDBC drivers and other provider JARs with the connection classpath attribute as needed. See the tutorial and reference.

Create people.csv next to scriptella.jar:

id,name
1,Ada
2,Grace

Then create csv-to-sql.etl.xml in the same directory:

<!DOCTYPE etl SYSTEM "http://scriptella.org/dtd/etl.dtd">
<etl>
    <connection id="input" driver="csv" url="people.csv"/>
    <connection id="output" driver="text" url="load.sql"/>

    <query connection-id="input">
        <script connection-id="output">
            INSERT INTO people (id, name) VALUES ($id, '$name');
        </script>
    </query>
</etl>

The flow is source row to nested action:

1. <query connection-id="input"> asks the CSV connection for rows. The CSV driver treats the first line as headers and emits one row for each remaining line.
2. The nested <script connection-id="output"> runs once for every emitted row. Its connection-id selects the destination; nesting supplies the current source row.
3. $id and $name expand values from that current row. This example writes text, so substitution is intentional. When the destination is JDBC, use ?id and ?name parameters to bind SQL values safely.

Run it from that directory:

java -jar scriptella.jar csv-to-sql.etl.xml
cat load.sql

The generated load.sql contains one INSERT statement per CSV data row. No database or JDBC driver is required.

The real power comes from nesting a target <script> inside a source <query> to transform or copy each row. For a complete MySQL-to-PostgreSQL example that writes directly to a database with JDBC parameter binding, see docs/first-migration.md. The tutorial has additional database and file integration examples.

Published artifacts use group ID org.scriptella (from 1.2 onward). Example for the core module:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.scriptella</groupId>
  <artifactId>scriptella-core</artifactId>
  <version>1.3</version>
</dependency>

Drivers and tools modules follow the same version. Prefer the binary distribution or the all-in-one JAR when you need the full set of bundled providers without assembling modules yourself.

Current master must be built with JDK 17:

# Module build and tests (primary path)
mvn clean install

# Optional: Ant packaging (Ant 1.10.17 for release dist / all-in-one JAR)
ant clean jar

• Website: https://scriptella.org
• Reference: https://scriptella.org/reference/
• API docs: https://scriptella.org/docs/api/
• Command-line usage contract and automation templates: docs/cli-usage.md
• Next version: docs/next-version.md
• Release history: CHANGELOG.md
• Maintainer guide: docs/MAINTAINING.md

Packaged documentation may also appear under docs/ in distribution archives.

• Bugs and features: GitHub Issues
• Discussion: GitHub Discussions
• Support: scriptella.org/support.html; commercial inquiries: scriptella@gmail.com

Pull requests and well-scoped issue reports for compatibility, correctness, and maintenance work are welcome. Broad feature development is not currently the project focus.

This software is licensed under the terms in the file named LICENSE in this directory (Apache License, Version 2.0).

Thank you for using Scriptella.

The Scriptella Project Team
https://scriptella.org