Managing database changes

Sometimes, when you release a new version of a component, you may want to add or change the database table structure. You could add this code into the installation script, but a better way to manage these changes is via the SQL update files. This is where the three-part version number we have assigned to our component becomes important.

If you compare that database table of our com_folio component to com_weblinks, you will notice that we are still missing a few standard fields that you would expect to see in a Joomla! component. Let's add a few more fields to our jos_folio table.

Edit the install.mysql.utf8.sql file under /administrator/components/com_folio/sql/, and make the following highlighted changes:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `#__folio` (
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `title` varchar(250) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `alias` varchar(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `catid` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `state` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '0',
  ...