How to Use Multiple Databases in Laravel Framework?

Laravel is a powerful PHP framework that makes it easy to develop web applications. One of its key features is its support for multiple databases. This means that you can easily connect to and use different databases in your application, whether they are on the same server or on different servers.

Using multiple databases can help improve the performance and scalability of your application, as well as provide more flexibility in managing your data. However, it requires careful configuration and setup. In this article, we will walk through the steps required to use multiple databases in Laravel.

Setting up a Connection

To use multiple databases in Laravel, you first need to set up a connection to each database in your application's configuration file. This is typically found in the config/database.php file.

Within this file, you can define one or more database connections using an array. Each connection is identified by a unique name, which you can use to reference it in your code. For example, you might define two connections for a users database and a orders database as follows:

'connections' => [
    'users' => [
        'driver' => 'mysql',
        'host' => 'localhost',
        'database' => 'users',
        'username' => 'root',
        'password' => '',
        'charset' => 'utf8',
        'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
        'prefix' => '',
    ],
    'orders' => [
        'driver' => 'mysql',
        'host' => 'localhost',
        'database' => 'orders',
        'username' => 'root',
        'password' => '',
        'charset' => 'utf8',
        'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
        'prefix' => '',
    ],
],

In this example, we have defined two connections, users and orders, each using the MySQL driver and connecting to a database on the local host.

Once you have defined your database connections, you can use the DB facade to switch between them in your code. For example, to execute a query on the users connection, you could do the following:

$users = DB::connection('users')->select('select * from users');

Creating and Migrating Tables

After setting up your database connections, you can create tables in each database using Laravel's migration feature. Migrations provide a convenient way to define and manage database schemas using PHP code.

To create a migration for a specific database, you can specify the connection name as a parameter when running the make:migration command. For example, to create a migration for the users database, you could run the following command:

php artisan make:migration create_users_table --database=users

This will create a new migration file in the database/migrations directory, with the specified connection name included in the filename. You can then define your table schema using the Schema facade, as you would for a single database application. For example, to create a users table with id, name, and email columns, you could define the following migration:

<?php
use Illuminate<span class="hljs-title">Support<span class="hljs-title">Facades<span class="hljs-title">Schema;
use Illuminate<span class="hljs-title">Database<span class="hljs-title">Schema<span class="hljs-title">Blueprint;
use Illuminate<span class="hljs-title">Database<span class="hljs-title">Migrations<span class="hljs-title">Migration
class CreateUsersTable extends Migration
{
/**
* Run the migrations.
*
* @return void
/
public function up()
{
Schema::connection('users')->create('users',
function (Blueprint $table)
{
$table->id();
$table->string('name');
$table->string('email')->unique();
$table->timestamps();
});
}
/*
* Reverse the migrations.
*
* @return void
*/
public function down()
{
Schema::connection('users')->dropIfExists('users');
}
}

Once you have defined your migrations, you can run them for each database using the migrate command. For example, to migrate the users table, you could run the following command:

php artisan migrate --database=users

This will create the users table in the specified database.

Querying Data

Once you have set up your connections and created your tables, you can query data from each database using Laravel's query builder or Eloquent ORM.

To query a specific database, you can use the connection method on the DB facade or the model class. For example, to retrieve all users from the users database, you could do the following:

$users = DB::connection('users')->table('users')->get();

Or, if you are using Eloquent, you could define a model for the users table and specify the connection in the model class:

class User extends Model
{
protected $connection = 'users';
}

Then you could query the users table using Eloquent methods as you would for a single database application:

$users = User::all();

we have explored how to use multiple databases in Laravel, including setting up a connection, creating and migrating tables, and querying data. By using multiple databases, you can improve the performance and scalability of your application, as well as provide more flexibility in managing your data.