The Complete Handbook to Create Migration in Laravel

Laravel is packed with many powerful features, and migrations are one of the most important ones. They play a key role in managing databases effectively. With Laravel migrations, companies or developers can organize and control database structures in a systematic and versioned way. This makes teamwork and deployment much smoother. Whether you are starting a new project or updating an existing one, learning about Laravel migrations is essential. This blog will walk you through how to create migration in Laravel, explaining each step in an easy way.

How to Create Migration in Laravel?

Creating migrations in Laravel involves several steps, from generating a migration file to running and rolling back migrations. Let’s explore each step.

1. Create a Migration

To create a Laravel migration, you can use the Artisan command-line tool that comes with Laravel. Open your terminal and navigate to your Laravel project directory. Use the following command:

bash
php artisan make:migration create_users_table        

This command will generate a new migration file in the database/migrations directory. The file name will include a timestamp, which helps Laravel keep track of the order of migrations.

You can also specify whether you are creating a new table or modifying an existing one using different options:

bash
php artisan make:migration add_votes_to_users_table --table=users        

This command prepares a migration file specifically for adding columns to the user's table.

2. Define the Schema

Once you have created the migration file, you need to define the schema within it. Open the newly created migration file, and you will see two methods: up() and down().

• The up() method is where you define what happens when you run the migration.
• The down() method can reverse the operations defined in up() which allows you to roll back changes if necessary.

Here is an example of how to define a simple schema for creating a user table:

php
public function up()
{
    Schema::create('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->id();
        $table->string('name');
        $table->string('email')->unique();
        $table->timestamps();
    });
}        

In this example, we are creating a user table with an auto-incrementing ID, name, email, and timestamps to track creations and updates.

3. Adding Columns in Table

If you need to add columns to an existing table, you would use the Schema::table() method within your migration file. For instance, if you want to add a paid column to the user's table, your migration would look like this:

php
public function up()
{
    Schema::table('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->integer('paid')->default(0);
    });
}        

You should? also define how to reverse this change in the down() method:

php
public function down()
{
    Schema::table('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->dropColumn('paid');
    });
}        

4. Running the Migration

After defining your schema, it is time to apply your migration and create or modify tables in your database. You can do this by running:

bash
php artisan migrate        

This command executes all pending migrations in your application. If successful, your database will reflect the changes specified in your migration files.

5. Rollback Migrations

Sometimes, you need to revert changes made by a migration. You can roll back the last batch of migrations using:

bash
php artisan migrate:rollback        

This command will call the down() method of each migration that was run in the last batch, effectively undoing those changes.

If you want to roll back all migrations at once, you can use:

bash 
php artisan migrate:reset        

This will revert all migrations by calling their respective down() methods.

6. Refresh Migrations

If you want to refresh all migrations, essentially rolling back all changes and then reapplying them, you can use:

bash
php artisan migrate:refresh        

This command is particularly useful during development when you want to reset your database state without manually rolling back each migration.

Conclusion

The Laravel migration system is a very useful tool for managing database structures. By knowing how to create migration in Laravel, you can keep your database well-organized and easy to manage throughout the life of your application. If you are a developer working on a team or often updating your database, understanding Laravel migrations is important for smooth workflows. Companies hire Laravel developer to ensure their databases stay simple and consistent as their apps grow and change.