How do I change the database that laravel connects to in the laravel configuration settings?

Question

Hi there,

In the tutorial, Hampton has instructed us to create a new database called Odot. I have created the database, and I want to change the configuration settings inside my Laravel code to connect to this database.

I am using a new version of Laravel 5. Firstly I cannot seem to find a folder in laravel-basics/app/config called 'local' and containing a second 'database.php' file. There only seems to be one database.php file, and that is in the top level of laravel-basics/app/config.

Then when I change the database name in that database.php file under the mysql object to env('DB_DATABASE', 'odot'), nothing happens, when I run 'return DB::select('select database();')' inside my routes.php file I still get '[{"database()":"homestead"}]'.

I would be grateful for some assistance, perhaps I'm missing out something?

Some more or my code is below:

database.php

<?php
return [

    'fetch' => PDO::FETCH_CLASS,

    'default' => 'mysql',

    'connections' => [

        'sqlite' => [
            'driver'   => 'sqlite',
            'database' => storage_path().'/database.sqlite',
            'prefix'   => '',
        ],

        'mysql' => [
            'driver'    => 'mysql',
            'host'      => env('DB_HOST', 'localhost'),
            'database'  => env('DB_DATABASE', 'odot'),
            'username'  => env('DB_USERNAME', 'homestead'),
            'password'  => env('DB_PASSWORD', 'secret'),
            'charset'   => 'utf8',
            'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
            'prefix'    => '',
            'strict'    => false"

routes.php

<?php
Route::get('/', 'TodoListController@index');

Route::get('/db', function(){
    return DB::select('select database();');
});

todolistcontroller.php

<?php 
namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Http\Requests;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

use View;

class TodoListController extends Controller { // extends the controller from Laravel


    public function index()
    {
        //return View::make('todos.show')->withId($id);
    }

    /**
     * Show the form for creating a new resource.
     *
     * @return Response
     */
    public function create()
    {
        //
    }

    public function store()
    {
        //
    }


    public function show($id)
    {
        return View::make('todos.show')->withId($id);
    }

Thanks!

Robert

London, UK

Answer 1 · 2015-07-19T17:08:43Z

July 19, 2015 5:08pm

Hi Robert,

In Laravel 5.x, there is not a separate local folder. Instead, you define your environment in a file in the root of your project called .env.example. From what I've read, this is a much cleaner way of dealing with separate environments compared to how it was handled in 4.x.

Anyway, all you have left to do to change the database being used is go into .env.example and change DB_DATABASE=homestead to DB_DATABASE=odot. You'll then want to make the same change in .env. I'm actually not clear on the purpose of both of these files... maybe someone else can chime in??

env.example

APP_ENV=local
APP_DEBUG=true
APP_KEY=SomeRandomString

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_DATABASE=odot
DB_USERNAME=homestead
DB_PASSWORD=secret

CACHE_DRIVER=file
SESSION_DRIVER=file

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Robert Young

Robert Young

How do I change the database that laravel connects to in the laravel configuration settings?

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Greg Kaleka

Greg Kaleka

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Robert Young

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Greg Kaleka

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Mark Zeitler

Greg Kaleka

Greg Kaleka