Database Seeding¶

Database seeding is a very useful feature to initialize your database with default data or sample data. The seeding feature is available since PHPLucidFrame 1.14.

By default, LucidFrame has two directories - /db/seed/default and /db/seed/sample. If you have only one database for your application, /db/seed/default is the right folder where you should create your seeding files. /db/seed/sample has the sample seeding files for the sample database which would be the namespace sample.

Seeding Syntax¶

The following is seeding file syntax.

<?php
use LucidFrame\Core\Seeder; // required ony if you have any reference field to insert and to use Seeder::setReference()

// Must return the array
return array(
    'order' => 1, // Execution order: lower number will be executed in greater priority, especially for reference fields
    'record-1' => array( // "record-1" can be used for the reference field in the other file
        // a record is an array of field and value
        // field  => value
        'field1'  => 'value2',
        'field2'  => 'value2',
        'field3'  => Seeder::setReference('record-key-from-previously-executed-seed'),
    ),
    'record-2' => array(
        'field1'  => 'value2',
        'field2'  => 'value2',
        'field3'  => Seeder::setReference('record-key-from-previously-executed-seed'),
    ),
);

The record key record-1 should be unique for each record and is to be used for reference field in other seeding file. Typically it could be the format {table-name}-{number}, e.g., category-1, category-2, post-1, post-2, etc. However, it is just a naming convention and it does not tie to any rule.

Seeding Example¶

Let’s say we have 4 tables to be populated with a set of data - category, post, tag and post_to_tag. The relationship between category and post is one-to-many relationship; post and ``tag` have many-to-many relationship. So, there must be 4 seeding PHP files with the names of respective table names.

/db
    /default
        |-- category.php
        |-- post.php
        |-- post_to_tag.php
        |-- tag.php

The followings are example contents for each seeding file.

category.php

<?php
// Data for the table "category"
return array(
    'order' => 1, // Execution order: this file will be executed firstly
    'category-1' => array( // a record is an array of field and value
        // field => value
        'slug'     => 'technology',
        'catName'  => 'Technology',
    ),
    'category-2' => array(
        'slug'     => 'framework',
        'catName'  => 'Framework',
    ),
);

post.php

<?php
// Data for the table "post"
use LucidFrame\Core\Seeder; // required if you have any reference field to insert

return array(
    'order' => 2, // this file will be executed after seeding is executed for the table "category"
    'post-1' => array(
        'catId'     => Seeder::setReference('category-1'), // reference field that will be inserted with category id that will be created by the previous category seeding execution
        'slug'      => 'welcome-to-the-lucidframe-blog',
        'postTitle' => 'Welcome to the LucidFrame Blog',
        'postBody'  => 'LucidFrame is a mini application development framework - a toolkit for PHP developers. It provides logical structure and several helper utilities for web application development. It uses a module architecture to make the development of complex applications simplified.',
    ),
);

tag.php

<?php
// Data for the table "tag"
return array(
    'order' => 3, // this file will be executed in third
    'tag-1' => array(
        'slug'    => 'php',
        'tagName' => 'PHP',
    ),
    'tag-2' => array(
        'slug'    => 'mysql',
        'tagName' => 'MySQL',
    ),
);

post_to_tag.php

<?php
// Data for the many-to-many table "post_to_tag"
use LucidFrame\Core\Seeder;

return array(
    'order' => 4, // this file will be executed lastly in all of four files
    'post-to-tag-1' => array(
        'postId'    => Seeder::setReference('post-1'), // reference field to the table "post"
        'tagId'     => Seeder::setReference('tag-1'),  // reference field to the table "tag"
    ),
    'post-to-tag-2' => array(
        'postId'    => Seeder::setReference('post-1'),
        'tagId'     => Seeder::setReference('tag-2'),
    ),
);

Note

You can check the example seeding files at /db/seed/sample.

Executing Seeds¶

When you have defined your seeding files, you can load your seeding data into your database using LucidFrame console tool by running the following command:

$ php lucidframe db:seed

If your database has a different namespace other than “default”, you can also provide the namespace in the command such as

$ php lucidframe db:seed sample