why is laravel 5 artisan migrate not creating sqlite database? - php

Question

I'm trying to use artisan migrate to create tables in sqlite.
I have the following in database.php
'sqlite' => [
'driver' => 'sqlite',
'database' => database_path('database.sqlite'),
'prefix' => '',
],
and this is my migrate class up function
Schema::connection('sqlite')->create('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->string('name');
$table->string('email')->unique();
$table->string('password');
$table->rememberToken();
$table->timestamps();
});
Note:- I have set DB_CONNECTION to be sqlite via the environment variable.
On the command line I get nothing to migrate, and no db is created (also no table).
Any ideas how I can get artisan migrate to create an sqlite db in laravel 5?
I have no problem creating mysql tables via artisan.
Thanks

Answer 1

its because you didnt create the db. use touch command like this to create new sqlite database.
touch database/database.sqlite
then configure the environment variable like this
DB_CONNECTION=sqlite
DB_DATABASE=/absolute/path/to/database.sqlite

Answer 2

In order to answer this part of the OP's question:
"Any ideas how I can get artisan migrate to create an sqlite db in laravel 5?"
In some cases where deployment and migrations need to be scripted I use a Service Provider to check the Sqlite DB exists and if not create it.
Here are the steps:
1) Create a Provider and save it to app/Providers/SqliteServiceProvider.php
<?php
namespace App\Providers;
use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;
class SqliteServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
/**
* Bootstrap the application services.
*
* #return void
*/
public function boot()
{
$databaseFile = config('database.connections.sqlite.database');
if (!file_exists($databaseFile)) {
info('Make Sqlite File "' . $databaseFile . '"');
file_put_contents($databaseFile, '');
}
}
}
2) Register the provider in config/app.php. For example in a fresh L5.8 install the SqliteServiceProvider would be placed under the RouteServiceProvider like so:
'providers' => [
//...
/*
* Application Service Providers...
*/
App\Providers\AppServiceProvider::class,
App\Providers\AuthServiceProvider::class,
// App\Providers\BroadcastServiceProvider::class,
App\Providers\EventServiceProvider::class,
App\Providers\RouteServiceProvider::class,
App\Providers\SqliteServiceProvider::class, // <--- HERE
],
3) Add/replace the following to the 'connections' element of config/database.php
'sqlite' => [
'driver' => 'sqlite',
'database' => env('DB_SQLITE_FILEPATH', database_path('database.sqlite')),
'prefix' => '',
'foreign_key_constraints' => env('DB_FOREIGN_KEYS', true),
],
4) In my .env file I add this:
DB_SQLITE_FILEPATH=/full/path/to/mysqlitefilename.sqlite
...but if you prefer you can skip this step and the DB will be created as database/database.sqlite.
5) Run your migration as usual and the sqlite file should be created then populated.

Answer 3

Ok I got it. artisan migrate seems to ignore the env DB_CONNECTION and the database.php default (which reads the env anyway). Instead it like the .env file DB_CONNECTION, with this set to sqlite it works (plus, as mentioned above you do need to manually create the database file, which is a pain for making dbs on the fly.
Also means you can't really change artisan migrate database types (ie: sqlite and mysql) on the fly as you need to change the .env variable each time you change the target db type.
go laravel.

Answer 4

That's right, you need to create empty database.sqlite file.
You should also use artisan --env parameter if you want artisan to load the concrete .env file. For example, artisan --env=testing migrate will force artisan to load .env.testing file.