Migration

A migration is a special class that contains a set of actions to run against the database, such as creating or modifying a database table. Migrations ensure your database gets set up identically every time you create a new instance of your app, for example, installing in production or on a teammate's machine.

To create a new migration, use the make:migration Artisan CLI command. The argument of the command should be a snake-cased description of what the migration will do:

$ php artisan make:migration create_listings_table

You'll now see your new migration in the database/migrations directory. You'll notice the filename has a prefixed timestamp, such as 2017_06_20_133317_create_listings_table.php. The timestamp allows Laravel to determine the proper order of the migrations, in case it needs to run more than one at a time.

Your new migration declares a class that extends Migration. It overrides two methods: up, which is used to add new tables, columns, or indexes to your database; and...