Removing column from database in Laravel 5+ - laravel

Question

I've a blog for which the articles table Schema is defined like this:
public function up()
{
Schema::create('articles', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->integer('user_id')->unsigned();
$table->string('title');
$table->string('thumb')->nullable();
$table->text('excerpt');
$table->text('body');
$table->string('slug')->unique();
$table->integer('comment_count')->unsigned()->default(0);
$table->integer('view_count')->unsigned()->default(0);
$table->timestamps();
$table->softDeletes();
}
public function down()
{
Schema::drop('articles');
}
I want to drop the columns comment_count and view_count without losing existing data in the table
I defined a new migration like this:
class RemoveCommentViewCount extends Migration
{
public function up()
{
//nothing here
}
public function down()
{
Schema::table('articles', function($table) {
$table->dropColumn('comment_count');
$table->dropColumn('view_count');
});
}
}
and I did php artisan migrate . It did migrate successfully, but the two columns are not dropped.
What am I doing wrong? How can I drop those columns without losing the existing data in the table?

Answer 1

Your migration must look like this:
class RemoveCommentViewCount extends Migration
{
public function up()
{
Schema::table('articles', function($table) {
$table->dropColumn('comment_count');
$table->dropColumn('view_count');
});
}
public function down()
{
Schema::table('articles', function($table) {
$table->integer('comment_count');
$table->integer('view_count');
});
}
}
The dropColumn in the up method, because with new migration you want to delete this columns. If you make a rollback, you have another time the two columns

Answer 2

Even you can drop the multiple columns in a single line by passing the array column to dropColumn function.
class RemoveCommentViewCount extends Migration
{
public function up()
{
Schema::table('articles', function($table) {
$table->dropColumn(['comment_count', 'view_count']);
});
}
public function down()
{
Schema::table('articles', function($table) {
$table->integer('comment_count');
$table->integer('view_count');
});
}
}
In case you have a foreign key constraint, then drop first the foreign key index association and then can pass the column to dropColumn function with others like following.
public function up()
{
Schema::table('customer_orders', function($table) {
$table->dropForeign(['product_id']);
$table->dropForeign(['shipping_address_id']);
$table->dropColumn(['product_id', 'shipping_address_id', 'column1', 'column2']);
});
}

Answer 3

Create remove column migration
php artisan make:migration RemoveCommentViewCount
The down method is for rollbacks, so add dropColumn in your up() function and reverse in down()
<?php
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
class RemoveCommentViewCount extends Migration
{
public function up()
{
if (Schema::hasColumn('comment_count', 'view_count')){
Schema::table('articles', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->dropColumn('comment_count');
$table->dropColumn('view_count');
//OR
$table->dropColumn(['comment_count', 'view_count']);
});
}
}
public function down()
{
Schema::table('articles', function($table) {
$table->integer('comment_count');
$table->integer('view_count');
});
}
}
Check laravel documentation on dropping columns migrations

Answer 4

I had a similar issue, I edited the initial migration, that is the initial table schema, removed the columns and then run php artisan migrate:refresh and it worked for me

Answer 5

Just add this code into your down() function in migration.php file
Schema::table('articles', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->integer('comment_count')->unsigned()->default(0);
$table->integer('view_count')->unsigned()->default(0);
});
and then run --> php artisan migrate:rollback