Laravel data migrations

Question

Is there a way to make data migrations in Laravel? I've found some instructions on how to seed the database, but it doesn't cover cases where I need to split one field into multiple fields, or merge multiple fields into one.

One possible solution is to query the database and update each record on a loop. The problem with this approach is that the models may not reflect the table schema during the migration (Django provides a solution for this).

Answer 1

Laravel has migrations built in :) http://laravel.com/docs/migrations

Simply run

php artisan make:migration migration_name_here 

and it will create a migration under app/database/migrations. You could then use Laravel's database classes in your up() and down() methods.

Let's use this as an example...

class SplitColumn extends Migration {      /**      * Run the migrations.      *      * @return void      */     public function up()     {         Schema::table('table_name', function($table)         {             // Create new columns for table_name (1 column split into 2).             $table->string('new_column');             $table->string('new_column_b');         });          // Get records from old column.         $results = DB::table('table_name')->select('old_column')->get();          // Loop through the results of the old column, split the values.         // For example, let's say you have to explode a |.         foreach($results as $result)         {             $split_value = explode("|", $result->old_column);              // Insert the split values into new columns.             DB::table('table_name')->insert([                 "new_column"    =>  $split_value[0],                 "new_column_b"  =>  $split_value[1]             ]);         }          // Delete old column.         Schema::table('table_name', function($table)         {             $table->dropColumn('old_column');         });     }      /**      * Reverse the migrations.      *      * @return void      */     public function down()     {         Schema::table('table_name', function($table)         {             // Re-create the old column.             $table->string('old_column');         });          // Get records from old column.         $results = DB::table('table_name')->select('new_column', 'new_column_b')->get();          // Loop through the results of the new columns and merge them.         foreach($results as $result)         {             $merged_value = implode("|", [$result->new_column, $result->new_column_b]);              // Insert the split values into re-made old column.             DB::table('table_name')->insert([                 "old_column"    =>  $merged_value             ]);         }          // Delete new columns.         Schema::table('table_name', function($table)         {             $table->dropColumn('new_column');             $table->dropColumn('new_column_b');         });     } }