Laravel Migrations VS CodeIgniter Migrations

Laravel:

Type the below into your command line:
php artisan make:migration migrationName
- The naming conventions I use for the migrationName
- If I am creating a table: createUsersTable
- If I am altering a table: alterUsersTableAddContact - I usually specify what I am altering incase I need to alter the table again in the future then it is easy to keep track of changes.

CodeIgniter:

Open application/config/migration.php and check that $config['migration_enabled'] is set to true.
In application/config/ create a folder called migrations
In the migrations folder is where you can create your migrations
- Naming conventions to use for the migration file name: YYYYMMDDHHIISS_create_users
  - where:
    - YYYYMMDDHHIISS is the time stamp of when you are creating the file
    - create_users is what the migration does (eg. creates a users table)
In the migration file you created add the below code:

Laravel:

Locate the migration file that was created (database/migrations/)
- If you are creating a table:

CodeIgniter:

Laravel:

Type the below into your command line
- php artisan migrate
  - migrate:fresh will drop all the tables you currently have in your DB and migrate all migrations from scratch
  - migrate:rollback will rollback your DB to the state it was before you did your last migration

CodeIgniter:

To run the migrations you have created you will need to create a controller called migrate
In your migrate controller add the code below:
To run the migrations go to http://yoursite.com/migrate

Laravel and CodeIgniter are very similar in their processes but I find Laravel's migrations a lot easier and faster to implement.

Happy Coding!

Rayne is a web developer with experience in PHP web apps and has an interest in project management and mobile development.