Laravel: Usefull Database helper

This package will provide you some helper for

• Backup your database
• Restore this backups
• Drop all tables from a schema

Installation

First things first, so require the package:

composer require spresnac/laravel-artisan-database-helper

That’s all, you are ready to go now 😁

Usage

BackupDatabase

The 90% way

To backup your database, open up your console and type

php artisan db:backup

and in most cases, you are done. You will find your backup in

storage/app/backups

Ok, with “most cases”, i meant this:

• your are using only one database
• you want to backup everthing
• you have set the path, so a call to mysqldump will work

If you have all of this, you are ready and good to go.

The other 10% ;)

Let’s say, you are not one of the 90%, perhaps because

• you use more than database connection
• you want to export only the structure
• you have a mysqldump but it is not in your path

I got you covered (like i had this problems too), so you can configure the way the backup is created with this options:

Define the connection to be backuped

With the first parameter, you can define the connection that is beeing used. You can set the connection within your config/database.php

php artisan db:backup <connection_name>

Define the path to your mysqldump binary

Real world example needed for this option? Ok, short-format: I am using windows … no more words needed ;)

The second parameter can be used to define a path that points to your mysqldump binary

php artisan db:backup <connection_name> <path_to_binary>

Hint: When you only need the path to be set, but use your default connection, use mysql as connection name:

php artisan db:backup mysql <path_to_binary>

Export only the structure

Use the -S option to export only the structure of your database:

php artisan db:backup -S

Export without options

This is one option that i personally need a lot. For details why, look in the ‘How i use it for testing my apps’ section.

php artisan db:backup -O

Export with a date prefix

You can export with the actual date and time as a prefix to the export file name. It will look like 20190425153412_yourConnection.sql. The date format is YmdHis.

php artisan db:backup -D

Glueing it all together

All glued together (export a specific database, with a custom path, structure only with no options in it):

php artisan db:backup foobardb d:/www/mysql/bin -SO

Where is my backup?

You will find your backup in

storage/app/backups/<connection>_backup.sql

If you set the -S option, it looks like this

storage/app/backups/<connection>_structure.sql

When used with -D it will look like

storage/app/backups/<Ymd_><connection>_backup.sql

DropTable

With this command you can quickly “emtpy” a given database schema without deleting the schema itself. For short, all tables in the given connection will be deleted.

php artisan db:drop-tables <connection>

If you want to use this in an automatic way, you can use the --force option to delete the tables without confirmation (you be warned!).

php artisan db:drop-tables <connection> --force

RestoreDatabase

To restore a backup, simply use

php artisan db:restore

You can provide more options in case you need one of this:

php artisan db:restore <backup_name> <connection> <path_to_mysql> <port>

All this options are similar to the ones described in db:backup, so you are able to seamlessly restore a backuped database.

How i use it for testing or bugfixing my apps

When having complex setups for very complex bugs it may happen that you are in need of some very specific database entries you do not want to reproduce all the time.

In this case, i do use this package as a helper for me to bugfix faster.

1. Create a backup from the database with db:backup.
2. Rename this backup like the bugticket i have.
3. Setup my unit-test for this bug in a special group, that is not executed by default.
4. In my testscript, i do define a testschema.
5. Before running my tests, execute db:drop-tables on the testschema.
6. Right after that, execute db:restore <ticketnumber>.

With this, everytime i execute my tests for bugfing my database is reset to this very specific point where i can reproduce the bug and fix it fast.

Finally

… have fun 😉 and be productive with it.