Download the PHP package calebdw/laravel-sql-entities without Composer

Laravel's schema builder and migration system are great for managing tables and indexes---but offer no built-in support for other SQL entities, such as (materialized) views, procedures, functions, and triggers. These often get handled via raw SQL in migrations, making them hard to manage, prone to unknown conflicts, and difficult to track over time.

laravel-sql-entities solves this by offering:

• 📦 Class-based definitions: bringing views, functions, triggers, and more into your application code.
• 🧠 First-class source control: you can easily track changes, review diffs, and resolve conflicts.
• 🧱 Decoupled grammars: letting you support multiple drivers without needing dialect-specific SQL.
• 🔁 Lifecycle hooks: run logic at various points, enabling logging, auditing, and more.
• 🚀 Batch operations: easily create or drop all entities in a single command or lifecycle event.
• 🧪 Testability: definitions are just code so they’re easy to test, validate, and keep consistent.

Whether you're managing reporting views, business logic functions, or automation triggers, this package helps you treat SQL entities like real, versioned parts of your codebase---no more scattered SQL in migrations!

[!NOTE] Migration rollbacks are not supported since the definitions always reflect the latest state.

"We're never going backwards. You only go forward." -Taylor Otwell

📦 Installation

First pull in the package using Composer:

Optionally, publish the configuration file:

The package looks for SQL entities under database/entities/ so you might need to add a namespace to your composer.json file, for example:

[!TIP] This package looks for any files matching database/entities in the application's base path. This means it should automatically work for a modular setup where the entities might be spread across multiple directories.

Configuration

The package ships with a configuration file that controls automatic syncing behavior:

When drop_on_migrate is enabled, all entities are dropped before migrations begin to prevent failures caused by dependent schema changes (e.g., dropping a column that a view references). However, this means entities will be unavailable while migrations are running, which can be problematic if the application is still serving requests.

When disabled, entities are refreshed (using CREATE OR REPLACE) after migrations finish. If a refresh fails due to a schema change, the entity is automatically dropped and recreated. For migrations that require specific entities to be absent, you can use the withoutEntities() method for more granular control.

🛠️ Usage

🧱 SQL Entities

To get started, create a new class in a database/entities/ directory (structure is up to you) and extend the appropriate entity class (e.g. View, etc.).

For example, to create a view for recent orders, you might create the following class:

You can also override the name and connection:

🔁 Lifecycle Hooks

You can also use the provided lifecycle hooks to run logic before or after an entity is created or dropped. Returning false from the creating or dropping methods will prevent the entity from being created or dropped, respectively.

⚙️ Handling Dependencies

Entities may depend on one another (e.g., a view that selects from another view). To support this, each entity can declare its dependencies using the dependencies() method:

The manager will ensure that dependencies are created in the correct order, using a topological sort behind the scenes. In the example above, OrdersView will be created before RecentOrdersView automatically.

📑 View

The View class is used to create views in the database. In addition to the options above, you can use the following options to further customize the view:

Additionally, you can start a query against the view using the query() method:

📐 Function

The Function_ class is used to create functions in the database.

[!TIP] The class is named Function_ as function is a reserved keyword in PHP.

In addition to the options above, you can use the following options to further customize the function:

Loadable functions are also supported:

⚡ Trigger

The Trigger class is used to create triggers in the database. In addition to the options above, you can use the following options to further customize the trigger:

🧠 Manager

The SqlEntityManager singleton is responsible for creating and dropping SQL entities at runtime. You can interact with it directly, or use the SqlEntity facade for convenience.

♻️ withoutEntities()

Sometimes you need to run a block of logic (like renaming a table column) without certain SQL entities present. The withoutEntities() method temporarily drops the selected entities, executes your callback, and then recreates them afterward.

If the database connection supports schema transactions, the entire operation is wrapped in one.

You can also restrict the scope to certain entity types or connections:

After the callback, all affected entities are automatically recreated in dependency order.

💻 Console Commands

The package provides console commands to create and drop your SQL entities.

🚀 Automatic syncing when migrating

SQL entities can be automatically synced whenever migrations run. To enable this, set the sync config option to true:

When drop_on_migrate is enabled (the default), all entities are dropped before migrations start and recreated after they finish. This prevents failures when migrations alter tables that entities depend on.

When drop_on_migrate is disabled, entities are only refreshed after migrations finish. The refresh uses CREATE OR REPLACE where possible and falls back to dropping and recreating if that fails (e.g., when a view's columns have changed).

Entities are also refreshed when there are no pending migrations, ensuring any newly added or updated entities are always created.

🤝 Contributing

Thank you for considering contributing! You can read the contribution guide here.

⚖️ License

This is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.

🔀 Alternatives

• laravel-sql-views
• laravel-migration-views