create migration automatically with php attributes

[agus24]

Hi. i have an idea can we use php attributes for creating migration from model only?

Our model would looks like

class Book extends Model
{
    use HasFactory;

    #[Id()]
    public int $id;

    #[String()]
    public string $name;

    #[Text(nullable: true)]
    public string $description;
}

and just call php artisan generate:migration and this would generate migration file with up and down methods automatically

function up() {
    Schema::create('books', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->id();
        $table->string('name');
        $table->text('description')->nullable();
        $table->timestamps();
    });
}

function down() {
    Schema::dropIfExists('books')
}

you can have an annotation when access the model and also create the model with migration inside of it. And it would be great if the generate:migration command would read the changes of the model then create migration file that will update the table

[andrey-helldar]

This approach is good for a one-time start.

Now imagine three cases:

1. New fields are added to the model. The script will have to go to the database, check for the existence of the table, check for the presence of existing fields, and then correctly generate the migration file.

2. Suppose initially a mistake was made in the column name. For example, they called the column "naame", then they noticed an error and corrected it to "name". How is the migration supposed to know it's fixing an existing column and not adding a new one? (reference to point 1).

3. Let's say during development you created a migration and deployed it successfully. Then you need to roll back and change it. What will be the actions? Roll back the migration, make changes to the model, generate a new migration file, delete the old migration file, and run again?

If you need to create migrations from existing tables, it's easier to use the https://github.com/kitloong/laravel-migrations-generator package, for example.