what is the best way to change column type in laravel?

Question

I have column balance with data type double, but I want to change it for storing price in proper way. I want to make it decimal.

For that I am trying I am doing following

public function up()
{
    Schema::table('billing', function (Blueprint $table) {
        //
        $table->decimal('balance', 8, 2)->change();
    });
}

But I am confused about down function, should I revert it back, I mean the previous data type?

Can someone kindly guide me about that, I will be thank full. Thank you

Answer 1

You don't need to define a drop function for an up function which alters a column.

Because drop() is intended to delete a table and maybe cascade the action. And your initial billing migration file should already have a drop definition for deleting that table.

So you can safely keep the down() function empty in your new migration file

Answer 2

The purpose of down method is to revert the change to state which was exactly same before running the up method of migration.If you are changing any user type in up() then it should be reverse in down() ideally.So your migration will end like this:

   public function up()
    {
      //double to decimal
    }

  public function down()
    {
     //decimal to double
    }