# How to Add a New Column to an Existing Table in a Laravel Migration?

By Bobby Iliev, 2020-12-23. https://bobbyiliev.com/post/how-to-add-a-new-column-to-an-existing-table-in-a-laravel-migration/

# Introduction

The Laravel Migrations allow you to manage your database structure by creating new tables and columns. The Laravel migrations are like version control for your database.

In this tutorial, **you will learn how to add a new column to an existing table in a Laravel Migration**!

# Prerequisites

Before you start, you would need to have a Laravel application up and running.

I will be using a DigitalOcean Ubuntu Droplet for this demo. If you wish, you can use my affiliate code to [get free $100 DigitalOcean credit](https://m.do.co/c/2a9bba940f39) to spin up your own servers!

If you do not have that yet, you can follow the steps from this tutorial on how to do that:

* [How to Install Laravel on DigitalOcean with 1-Click](/post/how-to-install-laravel-on-digitalocean-with-1-click/)

Or you could use this awesome script to do the installation:

* [LaraSail](https://devdojo.com/episode/laravel-on-digital-ocean-with-larasail)

# Creating a new table with a migration

Let's first start by creating a new table called `tasks`.

In order to create a new table, you could use the following `artisan` command:

```
php artisan make:migration create_tasks_table
```

Output:

```
Created Migration: 2020_12_23_133641_create_tasks_table
```

This would generate a new migration file for you at:

```
database/migrations/2020_12_23_133641_create_tasks_table.php
```

The content of the file would look like this:

```
<?php

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

class CreateTasksTable extends Migration
{
    /**
     * Run the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('tasks', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->bigIncrements('id');
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    /**
     * Reverse the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function down()
    {
        Schema::dropIfExists('tasks');
    }
}
```

The Laravel migrations will use the `Schema` facade to create and modify database tables and columns:

```
        Schema::create('tasks', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->bigIncrements('id');
            $table->timestamps();
        });
```

Inside the facade, you could specify the different columns that you want to add.

So let's go ahead and add a new column called `title` which would hold the title of our tasks:

```
        Schema::create('tasks', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->bigIncrements('id');
            $table->string('title');
            $table->timestamps();
        });
```

After that, to run the migration, use this `artisan` command here:

```
php artisan migrate
```

Output:

```
Migrating: 2020_12_23_133641_create_tasks_table
Migrated:  2020_12_23_133641_create_tasks_table (0.02 seconds)
```

Next, let's look into how to add a new column to that existing table without modifying the old migration file.

# Add a New Column to an Existing Table

Now, let's say that we wanted to add a `description` column to our existing `tasks` table where we would keep the description of the tasks that we have.

To do we can again use the `php artisan make:migration` command, but this time we can specify the table that we want to add the column to with the `--table` argument:

```
php artisan make:migration add_description_to_tasks --table="tasks"
```

Output:

```
Created Migration: 2020_12_23_134156_add_description_to_tasks
```

> It is considered a good practice to use a descriptive name for your migration.

This will again generate a new file at:

```
database/migrations/2020_12_23_134156_add_description_to_tasks.php
```

> Note: The timestamp at the beginning of the file will indicate when the file was created

The content of the file will look like this:

```
<?php

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

class AddDescriptionToTasks extends Migration
{
    /**
     * Run the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::table('tasks', function (Blueprint $table) {
            //
        });
    }

    /**
     * Reverse the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function down()
    {
        Schema::table('tasks', function (Blueprint $table) {
            //
        });
    }
}
```

To add the new column, just specify it again in the `up()` method:

```
public function up()
{
    Schema::table('tasks', function($table) {
        $table->text('description');
    });
}
```

Another important thing to keep in mind here is that you need to update the `down()` method as well and add a `dropColumn()` method indicating that in case someone runs a migration refresh, the column should be dropped:

```
public function down()
{
    Schema::table('tasks', function($table) {
        $table->dropColumn('description');
    });
}
```

Finally, save the file and rerun your migrations:

```
php artisan migrate
```

Output:

```
Migrating: 2020_12_23_134156_add_description_to_tasks
Migrated:  2020_12_23_134156_add_description_to_tasks (0.03 seconds)
```

And this is pretty much it! This is how you can add a new column to an existing table!

# Conclusion

If you are just getting started with Laravel, make sure to check out this [introduction to Laravel course here](https://devdojo.com/course/laravel-7-basics).

I also strongly suggest checking out the official Laravel Documentation:

* [Laravel Documentation](https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/)