What is ALTER TABLE in Doctrine Migrations?

In Doctrine, ALTER TABLE refers to modifying an existing table schema using a new migration file. Common use cases:

• Add or remove columns
• Change column types or constraints
• Rename columns

Example Use Case: Add a status boolean column to the user table

Modify the Entity

Update User.php: in (module\Application\src\Entity\User.php)

namespace Application\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @ORM\Table(name="user")
 */
class User
{
  /** @ORM\Id @ORM\GeneratedValue @ORM\Column(type="integer") */
  private $id;

  /** @ORM\Column(type="string", length=255) */
  private $email;

  /** @ORM\Column(type="string", length=255) */
  private $password;
  /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="boolean", options={"default" : false})
  */
  private $status;
}

Generate Migration

Run this in terminal:

php vendor/bin/doctrine-migrations diff

This creates a file like:

public function up(Schema $schema): void
{
  $this->addSql('ALTER TABLE user ADD status TINYINT(1) DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL');
}

public function down(Schema $schema): void
{
  $this->addSql('ALTER TABLE user DROP status');
}

Run Migration

php vendor/bin/doctrine-migrations migrate

Your user table now has a status column of type boolean.

Change Column Type

you have a user table with a column status that is currently boolean , and you want to change it to string.

Before:

/**
  * @ORM\Column(type="boolean", options={"default" : false})
*/
private $status;

After:

/**
 * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=10)
 */
private $status;

Generate Migration

Run this in terminal:

php vendor/bin/doctrine-migrations diff

Run Migration

php vendor/bin/doctrine-migrations migrate