Seeding

Remarks#

Database seeding allows you to insert data, general test data into your database. By default there is a DatabaseSeeder class under database/seeds.

Running seeders can be done with

php artisan db:seed

Or if you only want to process a single class

php artisan db:seed --class=TestSeederClass

As with all artisan commands, you have access to a wide array of methods which can be found in the api documentation

Inserting data

There are several ways to insert data:

Using the DB Facade

public function run()
{
    DB::table('users')
        ->insert([
            'name' => 'Taylor',
            'age'  => 21
        ]);
}

Via Instantiating a Model

public function run()
{
    $user = new User;
    $user->name = 'Taylor';
    $user->save();
}

Using the create method

public function run()
{
    User::create([
        'name' => 'Taylor',
        'age'  => 21
    ]);
}

Using factory

public function run()
{
    factory(App\User::class, 10)->create();
}

Seeding && deleting old data and reseting auto-increment

public function run()
{
    DB::table('users')->delete();
    DB::unprepared('ALTER TABLE users AUTO_INCREMENT=1;');
    factory(App\User::class, 200)->create();
}

See the Persisting example for more information on inserting/updating data.

Calling other seeders

Within your DatabaseSeeder class you are able to call other seeders

$this->call(TestSeeder::class)

This allows you to keep one file where you can easily find your seeders. Keep in mind that you need to pay attention to the order of your calls regarding foreign key constraints. You can’t reference a table that doesn’t exist yet.

Creating a Seeder

To create seeders, you may use the make:seeder Artisan command. All seeders generated will be placed in the database/seeds directory.

$ php artisan make:seeder MoviesTableSeeder

Generated seeders will contain one method: run. You may insert data into your database in this method.

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class MoviesTableSeeder extends Seeder
{
    /**
     * Run the database seeds.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function run()
    {
        App\Movie::create([
            'name' => 'A New Hope',
            'year' => '1977'
        ]);

        App\Movie::create([
            'name' => 'The Empire Strikes Back',
            'year' => '1980'
        ]);
    }
}

You will generally want to call all your seeders inside the DatabaseSeeder class.

Once you’re done writing the seeders, use the db:seed command. This will run DatabaseSeeder’s run function.

$ php artisan db:seed

You may also specify to run a specific seeder class to run individually using the --class option.

$ php artisan db:seed --class=UserSeeder

If you want to rollback and rerun all migrations, and then reseed:

$ php artisan migrate:refresh --seed

The migrate:refresh --seed command is a shortcut to these 3 commands:

$ php artisan migrate:reset     # rollback all migrations
$ php artisan migrate           # run migrations
$ php artisan db:seed           # run seeders

Safe reseeding

You may want to re-seed your database without affecting your previously created seeds. For this purpose, you can use firstOrCreate in your seeder:

EmployeeType::firstOrCreate([
    'type' => 'manager',
]);

Then you can seed the database:

php artisan db:seed

Later, if you want to add another type of employee, you can just add that new one in the same file:

EmployeeType::firstOrCreate([
    'type' => 'manager',
]);
EmployeeType::firstOrCreate([
    'type' => 'secretary',
]);

And seed your database again with no problems:

php artisan db:seed

Notice in the first call you are retrieving the record but doing nothing with it.