laravel development environment sqlite database does not exist

Question

Trying to use sqlite in development environment. It seems to detect the environment correctly but when I try to migrate to development.sqlite I get exception thrown "database does not exist"

artisan command

php artisan migrate --env=development

bootstrap/start.php

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(

    'development' => array('localhost'),

));

app/config/development/database.php

<?php

return array(
    'default' => 'sqlite',

    'connections' => array(
            'sqlite' => array(
            'driver'   => 'sqlite',
            'database' => __DIR__.'/../database/development.sqlite',
            'prefix'   => '',
        )
    )
);

As far as I know laravel is supposed to create the file if it does not exist but since it didn't I tried manually creating the file and still get the exception thrown.

UPDATE: Maybe something not right with the env because the same thing happens if I try ':memory' for the database.

UPDATE 2: I tried running the sample unit test but add to TestCase.php

     /**
     * Default preparation for each test
     *
     */
    public function setUp()
    {
        parent::setUp(); // Don't forget this!

        $this->prepareForTests();
    }

    /**
     * Creates the application.
     *
     * @return Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\HttpKernelInterface
     */
    public function createApplication()
    {
        $unitTesting = true;

        $testEnvironment = 'testing';

        return require __DIR__.'/../../bootstrap/start.php';
    }

    /**
     * Migrates the database and set the mailer to 'pretend'.
     * This will cause the tests to run quickly.
     *
     */
    private function prepareForTests()
    {
        Artisan::call('migrate');
        Mail::pretend(true);
    }

And this too gives the same exception though the testing env is already shipped with laravel. So I'll see if I can find any new issues on that.

Answer 1

I noticed that my database.php file had the following

'sqlite' => [
    'driver' => 'sqlite',
    'database' => env('DB_DATABASE', database_path('database.sqlite')),
    'prefix' => '',
],

I changed it to read the following, and it worked just fine.

'sqlite' => [
    'driver' => 'sqlite',
    'database' => database_path('database.sqlite'),
    'prefix' => '',
],

Answer 2

Wow, typos and wrong paths.

Copying the sqlite array from config/database.php into config/development/database.php I forgot to change the path to the development.sqlite file from

__DIR__.'/../database/development.sqlite'

to

__DIR__.'/../../database/development.sqlite'

And for the in memory test it should have been

':memory:'

instead of

':memory'