How to Change Column Type using Laravel Migration?

In this tutorial, you will go to learn how to change the column type by using laravel migration.

If you are doing progressive development, chances are that due to a change in the requirement , you have to change the column type.

We will be considering the example of the users here, where in the users table we had the namecolumn with the string type but want to change to the longText.

By the end of the article, you will be able to change column data type laravel migration.

Lets get started!

Step 1: Install Laravel

Let’s start with installing the laravel itself in the folder name change_column_type.

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel change_column_type

Step 2: Update Env file with DB Credentials

Now go the .env file and change the DB_PORT, DB_DATABASE, DB_USERNAME and DB_PASSWORD with your DB Credentials.

Step 3: Migrate Database

Lets now migrate, so that we can have the current tables in the database:

php artisan migrate

Step 4: Create New Migration for Changing Column Type

Since we want to rename the users table column name . We want to change the nametype from string to longText.

So in order to do that, let’s create new migration file called change_users_table_name_column_type.

php artisan make:migration change_users_table_name_column_type

It will create the new change_users_table_name_column_type migration file.

Step 5: Edit the Migration file

Now you need to go to the database/migrations and open change_users_table_name_column_type migration file, you will see something like this:

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

class ChangeUsersTableNameColumnType extends Migration
{
    /**
     * Run the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function up()
    {
        //

    }

    /**
     * Reverse the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function down()
    {
        //
    }
}

Step 6: Change the Column Type

In the up() function and add the following code like this:

 public function up()
    {
Schema::table('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
           $table->longText('name')->change();
        });    
}

You can see that first we typed the column type which we want longText, then in the arguments, we provided the column name itself which was the name followed by the change() function.

Step 7: Run the migrate command

Now migrate once again:

php artisan migrate

Step 8: Install DABL Package if you getting Exception

If by any chance, you are getting the following exception, you need to install package doctrine/dbal

Install the doctrine/dbal package by typing the following command in terminal:

composer require doctrine/dbal

It is mentioned in the laravel documentation as well that to modify the column you need that package to save its state.

Before modifying a column, be sure to add the doctrine/dbal dependency to your composer.json file. The Doctrine DBAL library is used to determine the current state of the column and create the SQL queries needed to make the specified adjustments to the column:

Step 9: Do the migrate again

Run the migration once again:

php artisan migrate

You will see that the users table column name name type has been changed from string to the longText.

Conclusion:

Hope in the above post, you have learned today on how to change the column type using laravel migration.

Check this article, if you want to change the column name using laravel migration.

Read More: How to Change Table Name using Laravel Migration?

I will see you the next one. Keep Coding!