Laravel migration table field's type change

Question

Following is my file 2015_09_14_051851_create_orders_table.php. And I want to change $table->integer(\'category_id\'); as a string with new migratio

Answer 1

The standard solution didn't work for me, when changing the type from TEXT to LONGTEXT.

I had to it like this:

public function up()
{
    DB::statement('ALTER TABLE mytable MODIFY mycolumn  LONGTEXT;');
}

public function down()
{
    DB::statement('ALTER TABLE mytable MODIFY mycolumn TEXT;');
}

This could be a Doctrine issue. More information here.

Another way to do it is to use the string() method, and set the value to the text type max length:

    Schema::table('mytable', function ($table) {
        // Will set the type to LONGTEXT.
        $table->string('mycolumn', 4294967295)->change();
    });

Answer 2

First composer requires doctrine/dbal, then:

$table->longText('column_name')->change();

Answer 3

update: 31 Oct 2018, Still usable on laravel 5.7 https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/migrations#modifying-columns

To make some change to existing db, you can modify column type by using change() in migration.

This is what you could do

Schema::table('orders', function ($table) {
    $table->string('category_id')->change();
});

please note you need to add doctrine/dbal dependency to composer.json for more information you can find it here http://laravel.com/docs/5.1/migrations#modifying-columns

Answer 4

Not really an answer, but just a note about ->change():

Only the following column types can be "changed": bigInteger, binary, boolean, date, dateTime, dateTimeTz, decimal, integer, json, longText, mediumText, smallInteger, string, text, time, unsignedBigInteger, unsignedInteger and unsignedSmallInteger.

https://laravel.com/docs/5.8/migrations#modifying-columns

If your column isn't one of these you will need to either drop the column or use the alter statement as mentioned in other answers.

Answer 5

2018 Solution, still other answers are valid but you dont need to use any dependency:

First you have to create a new migration:

php artisan make:migration change_appointment_time_column_type

Then in that migration file up(), try:

    Schema::table('appointments', function ($table) {
        $table->string('time')->change();
    });

If you donot change the size default will be varchar(191) but If you want to change size of the field:

    Schema::table('appointments', function ($table) {
        $table->string('time', 40)->change();
    });

Then migrate the file by:

php artisan migrate

more info from doc.

Answer 6

all other answers are Correct But Before you run

php artisan migrate

make sure you run this code first

composer require doctrine/dbal

to avoid this error

RuntimeException : Changing columns for table "items" requires Doctrine DBAL; install "doctrine/dbal".