Using Macros to Simplify Migrations
How to add helper methods to the Blueprint Facade.
March 7, 2023
1k ViewsShort Answer
Using the Blueprint facade, create a macro and register it in a service provider.
Implementing a Slug Helper
If you've made a website, you might have used a slug to make your URLs look neat. But doing it over and over can get annoying. You can simplify things by creating helper methods to add or remove a slug column.
To do this we can add a macro to the boot method of a registered service provider, such as AppServiceProvider.php.
namespace App\Providers;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\ColumnDefinition;
use Illuminate\Support\Fluent;
use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
public function boot(): void
{
Blueprint::macro('slug', function (?int $length = null): ColumnDefinition {
return $this->char('slug', $length);
});
Blueprint::macro('dropSlug', function (): Fluent {
return $this->dropColumn('slug');
});
}
}
Usage
In a migration you can call $table->slug() and $table->dropSlug().
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;
return new class extends Migration {
public function up(): void
{
Schema::table('posts', static function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->slug();
});
}
public function down(): void
{
Schema::table('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->dropSlug();
});
}
};
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